UN team to compare seized explosives with those used in Hariri murder

Chief UN investigator Serge Brammertz has asked the international committee probing the assassination of Lebanese ex-Premier Rafik Hariri to examine the explosives and weapons confiscated last month, the daily al- Mustaqbal reported on Tuesday.

Citing judicial sources, the daily said that the international committee had already examined the munitions, weapons and timing equipment confiscated from the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP) and would compare them with those used in the killings of Hariri and others.

Police confiscated 200 kg of T.N.T. paste, detonators and timing equipment from SSNP hideouts during a raid in Koura last month. Seven SSNP members were arrested in the operation.

The pro-Syrian group had said in a statement that all the explosives and related equipment confiscated by police were left over from its resistance activity against Israel in the 1980s.

However, the newspaper had said investigators believed that the confiscated T.N.T. paste and detonators were "brought into Lebanon in the year 2000."

Rafik Hariri was killed in a massive bombing in Beirut in Feb. 2005. A UN-led special tribunal was formed to investigate the Hariri case following the incident.

Source: Xinhua