Detlev Mehlis (born 1949) is the Senior Public Prosecutor in the Office of the Attorney General in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. He has 30 years of prosecutorial experience and has led numerous investigations into serious, complex transnational crimes. He has been a senior
public prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial ...
since 1992 and has, over the course of his career, been responsible for prosecuting
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
and
organized crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
cases. Most notably, he investigated the bombing on the
discotheque
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gener ...
La Belle in then
West-Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
in 1986, which claimed the life of two
US soldiers
A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer.
Etymology
The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...
and a
Turkish woman, and uncovered the involvement of the
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
n
intelligence service
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives.
Means of informatio ...
. He also proved the involvement of the terrorist
Carlos and Syrian diplomats in the attack on the
French culture centre
Maison de France, also in West-Berlin, in 1983, as well as the involvement of Syrian intelligence services in the bombing of a German-Arab social center in Berlin in 1986. Since 1998, Mehlis has been the Chief of the Contact Office of the
European Judicial Network and Coordinator for the fight against organized crime in the State of Berlin.
In 2005,
United Nations Secretary-General
The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
The role of the secretary-ge ...
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder ...
appointed Mehlis as the Commissioner of the
UN International Independent Investigation Commission The United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission or UNIIIC was established on 7 April 2005 by Security Council Resolution 1595 to investigate the assassination of former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafic Hariri, who had been ki ...
(UNIIIC) into the
assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
of former
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
Rafik is the given name of:
*Rafik Al-Hariri (1944–2005), business tycoon, former Prime Minister of Lebanon
*Rafik Bouderbal (born 1987), French-born Algerian player currently playing for ES Sétif in the Algerian Championnat National
*Rafik Deg ...
and 22 other persons in Beirut. In October 2005,
Jund al-Sham
Jund al-Sham ( ar, جند الشام, lit=The Sham Division) is or was the name of multiple Sunni Islamic jihadist militant groups.
Founded around 1991 in Jordan and trained in 1999 in Afghanistan with financial support from Osama bin Laden, ...
threatened to slaughter Detlev Mehlis while he was heading the UN inquiry into the assassination of Rafik Hariri, claiming that Mehlis was connected with Israel and the CIA.
Mehlis was head of the UNIIIC from 13 May 2005 to 11 January 2006. He issued two reports during his term.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was not yet established when he was at this post.
The first
was presented to the Secretary General on 20 October 2005. It implicated
Lebanese and
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
n Military Intelligence in the assassination, and it accused Syrian officials, including now Foreign Minister Muallem, of misleading the investigation. A second report, submitted on December 10, 2005, upholds the conclusions of the first report.
On 11 January 2006 Mehlis, upon his own suggestion, was replaced by
Serge Brammertz
Serge Brammertz (born 17 February 1962) is a Belgian prosecutor, academic and jurist. He serves as the chief prosecutor for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) since 2016. He also served as the chief prosecutor f ...
, who upheld UNIIIC's conclusions under Mehlis. An indictment was subsequently issued in 2011 by the
Special Tribunal for Lebanon
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), also referred to as the Lebanon Tribunal or the Hariri Tribunal, is a tribunal of international character applying Lebanese criminal law to carry out the investigation and prosecution of those responsib ...
against persons with alleged ties to
Hezbollah
Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
.
In recognition of his achievements in the fight against terrorism Mehlis has been decorated with the German
Bundesverdienstkreuz
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...
Erster Klasse (Order of Merit, First Class) and the French
l'Ordre National de Merite.
In 2009 Mehlis was appointed by the EU-Commission to head the "European Union Philippines Justice Support Programme" (EPJUST). The program aimed successfully to assist authorities and civil society alike in fighting extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the Philippines.
References
External links
Briefing by Detlev Mehlis, commissioner of UNIIIC, to the UN Security Council on the killing of Rafik Hariri(October 26, 2005)
Detlev Mehlis: Diligent detectiveThe Mehlis reportThe second (December 2005) Mehlis Report
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehlis, Detlev
1949 births
Living people
Jurists from Berlin
German prosecutors
Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Ordre national du Mérite