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SYDNEY - AN EGYPTIAN-BORN Australian policeman will head investigations for a United Nations tribunal prosecuting those accused of assassinating Lebanon's ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri, police said on Friday.
Nick Kaldas, the deputy commissioner of police in New South Wales, will be chief of investigations for the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, state police commissioner Andrew Scipione said.
The international tribunal is designed to try those accused of recent political murders in Lebanon, including the 2005 killing of Mr Hariri in a massive car bombing on the Beirut seafront that also killed 22 others.
The Arabic-speaking Mr Kaldas, who has worked primarily in major crimes and counter-terrorism in 27 years with the NSW police force, said it was an honour to be selected for the role.
'Working for the UN is the closest a police officer could come to representing their country, so it is a role I take on with a great sense of responsibility,' he said.
The 51-year-old previously led the investigation into Australia's first political assassination - the shooting murder NSW parliamentarian John Newman in 1994 - which led to a life sentence for a local councillor.
Mr Kaldas has also worked in Iraq, in 2004 and late 2005, as a senior police adviser to the Iraqi government and to assist the Iraqi Special Tribunal prosecuting Saddam Hussein. -- AFP
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