Hariri assassination – Request to expand UNIIIC mandate/establish tribunal – Letter from Lebanon

Letter dated 13 December 2005 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i.  of the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

  I have the honour to forward herewith a letter from Fuad Siniora, Prime Minister of Lebanon, addressed to you (see annex) concerning the request of the Government of Lebanon to establish a tribunal of an international character to try all those who are found responsible for the assassination of the late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, and to expand the mandate of the International Independent Investigation Commission or create an independent international investigation commission to investigate the assassination attempts and assassinations and explosions that took place in Lebanon starting with the attempt on the life of Minister Marwan Hamade on 1 October 2004.

  I should be grateful if you would arrange for the present letter and its annex to be circulated as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Ibrahim Assaf 

Chargé d’affaires a.i.

Annex to the letter dated 13 December 2005 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

13 December 2005 

  Reference is made to our telephone conversation of 12 December 2005 following the terrorist assassination of prominent MP and journalist Gebran Tueini, and in the light of the two reports of Commissioner Detlev Mehlis, of 19 October and 10 December 2005. I would hereby like to convey to you the request of the Lebanese Government, as per its decision at its meeting on 12 December 2005, to ask the Security Council:

 –   To establish a tribunal of an international character to convene in or outside Lebanon, to try all those who are found responsible for the terrorist crime perpetrated against Prime Minister Hariri.

 –   To expand the mandate of the International Independent Investigation Commission formed according to Security Council resolution 1595 (2005), or create an independent international investigation commission, to investigate the assassination attempts and assassinations and explosions that took place in Lebanon starting with the attempt on the life of Minister Marwan Hamade on 1 October 2004.

  I would like to seize this opportunity to thank you once again for the continued support that you personally and the United Nations are extending to Lebanon.

(Signed) Fuad Siniora 

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