Suddenly, Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare decided to “break” his long silence...
In an interview with Lebanese website NOW Lebanon, Bellemare denied media reports that he would file the indictment in the case of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s assassination in September, stressing that he would issue it as soon as possible.
“The indictment has not been drafted yet,” Bellemare said, denying that the verdict was already written and is awaiting the appropriate political timing. “As I have previously said, I will only file the indictment when I am satisfied that there is enough evidence,” he claimed. “I will let nobody rush me with anything. It is a full circle …Let me say that the impact of going too fast would be much worse. As I said before: The indictment has to be based on solid evidence.”
The STL prosecutor said he was working on evidentiary process and that he had to make sure the evidence he will produce is admissible in court. “If I file an indictment and there is no evidence, the whole structure collapses,” he explained, noting that circumstantial evidence is a number of little facts that, when you look at them on their own, they might mean nothing. “But when you put them together, then the whole picture becomes irrefutable.”
He reiterated that he would resign if faced with political interference that he cannot deal with. “To those who say I am influenced by this or that person, I will tell them, 'Sorry, but I am not!'”
Turning to the evidence that Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah had unveiled during a press conference, Bellemare said that he has read the conference’s transcript with interest, adding that he’s not taking this evidence lightly. “We asked for all of the information that he had, including the audio and video material. What we got was what was shown on TV, while he said at one point that there was more. And more was not part of what we received. So I asked for that.”
When asked whether he had interviewed an Israeli citizen, the prosecutor said: “At this point this is part of the ongoing investigation. What I said before is that I will go where the evidence leads me.”
About what is termed as "false witnesses," Bellemare refused to comment on what former witness Mohamad Zuhair Siddiq says. “Basically, he is not somebody we will produce in court as a witness,” he said. “Who stamped Hussam Hussam and Siddiq false witnesses? I never used that expression. At this point, he is not a suspect. Just like Siddiq. I will just leave it to that.”
River to Sea
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