Mehlis Accuses Assad of Assassinating Hariri over Alleged Coup Plot
Former chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis has accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of ordering the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri for allegedly seeking to topple his regime.
Mehlis said in an interview with the German radio Deutsche Welle on Thursday that Assad ordered Hariri’s Feb. 2005 killing after Damascus “suspected that he was seeking to topple the Syrian regime and disarm Hizbullah in cooperation with France and U.S.”
He said that witness testimonies confirmed that the “structure of the regime in Syria doesn’t allow carrying out such crimes without orders from Assad.”
Mehlis stressed the importance of former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam’s testimony.
The ex-investigator remarked that the regime in Syria depends on “enrichment,” saying that “all those close to the top of the pyramid become rich,” however when they feel that the regime is about to fall “they would overthrow it as is the case of all dictatorships.”
Mehlis expected that the Assad regime would “collapse” in a year or two, but said he doesn’t know how “powerful the Syrian opposition is.”
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