UN Hariri probe to name Assad’s relative: report

[allemand]

BERLIN - A UN investigator has named a brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad as a suspect in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al Hariri, a German report said on Tuesday.

Stern magazine, in extracts from an article due to appear on Thursday, named Syrian military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat, as a suspect in the probe led by chief United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis.

Shawkat, who is Assad’s brother-in-law, is widely seen as the second most powerful man in Syria after Assad.

Mehlis, a German prosecutor, had questioned Shawkat “not as a witness, but as a suspected person”, said Stern, without giving the source of its information. (...) Diplomats and Lebanese political sources say they expect Mehlis to name some Syrian officials in his report. But for him to point the finger at a member of Assad’s inner circle would be political dynamite.

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Now that's a perfect pretext for war. Asad is unlikely to extradite his own brother-in-law (or to survive such a move against his family).