German judge Detlev Mehlis has summoned six senior Syrian intelligence officers, including President Assad's brother-in-law Gen. Assef Shawkat, for interrogation at the Beirut's headquarters of the U.N. commission investigating the assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the Arabic Al Hayat newspaper reported on Saturday.
It added Mehlis forwarded the summons to Damascus through the U.N. secretariat in New York on Wednesday, using the powers granted to him by Security Council Resolution 1636 to question any Syrian he wants at the location and modality of his own choice.
In addition to Gen. Shawkat, who is the chief of Syria's military intelligence service, Mehlis has summoned Maj. Gen. Bahjat Suleiman, former chief of Syria's internal intelligence apparatus and Brig. Gen. Rustom Ghazaleh, who presided over Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon when Hariri was assassinated in Beirut Feb. 14, according to Al Hayat.
Ghazaleh's aide in south Beirut, Brig. Gen. Jameh Jameh, was also listed on the Mehlis summons along with Abdul Karim Abbas, who served with the Palestinian branch of Syria's general intelligence service, and telecommunications and Internet expert Zafer Youssef.
