THE HAGUE (AFP) — The head of the United Nations named a seasoned US
prosecutor as registrar for the special court to try the suspected killers
of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri, the tribunal said Friday.
A statement from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said that UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon had appointed David Tolbert, 53, to the post and he
would start work on August 26.
"Mr. Tolbert will bring with him a wealth of experience in the work of
international criminal tribunals," the statement said.
Tolbert served as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia from 2004 to 2008, also in The Hague, it said.
He also assisted the UN in work linked to the trial of leaders in the former
Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
Tolbert replaces the Briton Robin Vincent, who stepped down last month.
The court was set up in 2007 by a UN resolution to investigate the death of
Hariri, who was killed in a massive bomb blast on the Beirut seafront in
February 2005.
The tribunal has no suspects in custody since ordering the release last
month of four pro-Syrian generals held by Lebanon for nearly four years
without charge.
Hariri's murder was widely blamed on Syria but Damascus has denied any
involvement. A UN investigative commission has found evidence that Syrian
and Lebanese intelligence services were linked to the killing.
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About Me
- Duong Dara
- Dara Duong was born in 1971 in Battambang province, Cambodia. His life changed forever at age four, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. During the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, Dara’s father, grandparents, uncle and aunt were executed, along with almost 3 million other Cambodians. Dara’s mother managed to keep him and his brothers and sisters together and survive the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. However, when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia, she did not want to live under Communist rule. She fled with her family to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border, where they lived for more than ten years. Since arriving in the United States, Dara’s goal has been to educate people about the rich Cambodian culture that the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy and about the genocide, so that the world will not stand by and allow such atrocities to occur again. Toward that end, he has created the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, which began in his garage and is now in White Center, Washington. Dara’s story is one of survival against enormous odds, one of perseverance, one of courage and hope.
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