As-Safir: Four Lebanese Officers to be Released before Monday

 
16-4-2009

The case of the four Lebanese officers detained without charges since 2005 over the assassination case of former Prime Minister martyr Rafik Hariri has resurfaced. They are reportedly to be released from prison before Monday.
A delegation from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) charged with the Hariri investigation will visit the officers on Thursday at Roumieh prison.

A defense attorney representing the four officers disclosed in an interview published Thursday that all the information in the officers' families and lawyers' hands indicate that a decision to release them had been taken.

The four officers are Jamil Sayyed, Ali Hajj, Raymond Azar and Mustafa Hamdan who respectively headed the General Security Department, the Internal Security Forces, Military Intelligence and the Presidential Guards Brigade.
Last week, a Lebanese investigating judge lifted the arrest warrants against the officers. Judge Sakr Sakr also ordered that the four remain in jail pending a decision on their fate by the STL.

The officers' attorney told the daily As-Safir that his defendants are likely to be freed before Monday unless the adopted procedures were adjusted unexpectedly especially after the handing over of the documents in Hariri case lacked for organization. It also needed to be translated into English, a mission undertaken by a large group including a number of committees and dozens of translators.