By NNN-KUNA
Paris : France has confirmed that a key witness in the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005 has disappeared.
Zuheir Mohammed Al-Siddiq is wanted by Lebanese authorities for questioning and an extradition order was issued by these authorities, according to Arab sources here.
French officials have been careful in their handling of the Al-Siddiq case given that he has been in this country since mid-2005. He was arrested by the French secret service in October 2005, but he has not been handed over to Lebanon.
UN investigators from the international tribunal examining the Hariri assassination have also cited Al-Siddiq as a crucial witness.
Asked if France knew where the witness now was, officials here said that they did not know. “We only know that Mr Al-Siddiq left his home on March 13,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani said Wednesday.
Asked if France had alerted the UN international commission on the Hariri assassination, she said that this did not appear necessary. “According to elements in our possession, there was no reason to alert the international inquiry commission which knows the situation of Mr Al-Siddiq,” the spokeswoman added.
She confirmed that the witness has been in France since mid-2005, several months after the Hariri killing, but she declined to comment on what his status in the country was in the intervening period. Neither would she say if Lebanon had issued a second extradition request concerning Al-Siddiq.
France has been one of the driving forces behind the efforts to set up an international tribunal to try those accused of killing Hariri, who was a close personal friend of former president Jacques Chirac.
So far, nobody has been directly accused or charged in the killing, which took place on Feb 14, 2005, in central Beirut, when a large bomb exploded killing Hariri and about 20 other people.