SG/A/973
BIO/3731
18 January 2006

Biographical Note

Secretary-General Appoints Serge Brammertz of Belgium to Head Investigation into Assassination of Rafik Hariri

NEW YORK, 17 January (UN Headquarters) -- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Serge Brammertz of Belgium as Commissioner of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Mr. Brammertz is currently Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.  He is in charge of the Investigations Division of the Office of the Prosecutor.

Before his election, he was Federal Prosecutor of the Kingdom of Belgium.  Mr. Brammertz also assisted the Council of Europe as an expert mandated with "setting up a mechanism for evaluating and applying nationally international undertakings concerning the fight against organized crime".  He also served on the Justice and Internal Affairs committee of the European Commission and as an adviser for the International Organization for Migration, leading major research studies on cases of cross-border corruption and trafficking in human beings in Central Europe and the Balkans.

From 1996 to 1997, he served as Deputy Prosecutor, then Chief Deputy Prosecutor at the Court of First Instance in Eupen (Belgium), before becoming Deputy to the Prosecutor-General at the Liège Court of Appeal.

While a National Prosecutor of the Kingdom of Belgium from 1997 to 2002, Mr. Brammertz was also Scientific Assistant, then Professor of law at the University of Liège.  An author on global terrorism, organized crime and corruption, he has published extensively in European and international academic journals.

Mr. Brammertz was born on 17 February 1962 in Eupen.

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