●First Mehlis report: the four generals and the "false witnesses"

On 20 October 2005 Detlev Mehlis presented his first report to the Security Council, accusing Syrian and Lebanese officers of involvement in Hariri's assassination; arrest warrants were issued for the four generals and they were detained: Jamil al-Sayyed, director of General Security; Ali al-Hajj, director of the Internal Security Forces; Raymond Azar, head of army intelligence; Mustafa Hamdan, commander of the Republican Guard. That struck at the security services allied to the resistance. Mehlis relied on the testimony of Mohammed Zuhair al-Siddiq and Hussam Hussam. Hussam publicly retracted his testimony in Damascus on 27 November 2005, and Siddiq was detained in France and then disappeared; from here came the "false witnesses" affair, which destroyed the investigation's credibility.