A person who had first-hand dealings with the Mehlis team told me that it was very clear that they were woefully ignorant of Lebanese and Middle East affairs. This is from today's report of Brammertz: "69. Some of the victims of the targeted attacks were directly or indirectly linked to the political coalition known as the March 14 Movement. Samir Kassir, Gebran Tueni, and George Hawi were associated with it in one context or another. George Hawi and Samir Kassir supported the Democratic Left Movement, one of the political parties that fall under the umbrella of the March 14 Movement." Hawi was not part of the March 14 group, and was negotiating with Rustum Ghazalah prior to his death (I don't say this to exonerate the Syrian regime; search my site for my belief in the Ashraf Rifi's theory that I find plausible). Furthermore, Hawi was certainly not part of the Yasar Dimuqrati and kept a distance from it. In fact, he was closer to LCP than he was to Yasar Dimuqrati and he certainly did not like and did not get along with Ilyas `Atallah. Finally, I find it interesting that the report talks about An-Nahar connection of some of the victims, and even talks about the An-Nahar connection as a possible theory (among others) for the assassination of Rafiq Hariri.