Brazil: Arrest of link to Hariri

SAO PAULO, Brazil
Brazilian police have arrested a Lebanese woman wanted for bank fraud and suspected of links to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, officials said Monday.

Acting on an anonymous tip, police arrested Rana Abdel Rahim Koleilat, 39, on Sunday in a furnished apartment at a hotel on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, said police inspector Nicanor Nogueira Branco.

The Lebanese consul general in Sao Paulo, Joseph Sayah, said Koleilat was wanted in Lebanon for bank fraud and for questioning by the U.N.’s Independent International Investigation Commission into last year’s truck bombing that killed Hariri and 20 other people in downtown Beirut, according to police.

“It’s vital that Miss Koleilat submit herself before the U.N. commission for questioning,’’ Sayah said in a faxed statement to police that Branco showed to reporters. Lebanese consular officials spent hours Monday inside the police station where Koleilat was being held, but declined to speak with journalists.

The U.N. commission was created by the United Nations Security Council two months soon after Hariri’s killing in February 2005.

Koleilat, who was carrying a British passport identifying her as Rana Klailat, offered police up to U.S.$200,000 (euro 168,035) to release her and was arrested for attempted bribery, Branco said.

Brazilian authorities were consulting with British officials to determine whether the passport was legitimate, Branco said. The passport said it had been issued in the Lebanese capital of Beirut by the British Embassy there in 2002, and listed Koleilat as a “British Overseas Citizen.’’

British officials in Brazil did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the validity of the passport.

The passport showed she had traveled to China, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey, Branco said. She visited Brazil three times over the last year or so, but “no one had any idea she was here in Sao Paulo. It’s a huge city and it’s easy to disappear here,’’ he said.
Sao Paulo has 18 million residents, and is home to a large community of Brazilians of Lebanese descent.

Interpol asked Brazilian police on Dec. 3 to try to find Koleilat, but no arrest warrant was issued, Branco said. The passport showed she most recently entered Brazil on Dec. 10.

Branco said Koleilat spoke fluent French, English and Arabic, but very poor Portuguese, the Brazilian language. She was being held in a police station that does not have jail cells. Authorities did not let her speak with reporters, though she was visited Sunday by a lawyer Branco did not identify.