5 Cigarette Butts May Help Trace Hamadeh's Would-Be Assassin

Five cigarette butts have been lifted from a staircase overlooking the scene of Marwan Hamadeh's assassination attempt in the first potential clue to the remote-control detonator who car-bombed the ex-Economy Minister's motorcade in Beirut six days ago, Premier Hariri's Al Mustaqbal newspaper reported on Wednesday. The report, which could not be immediately confirmed or denied by police or judicial investigators, said four of the cigarettes were smoked completely and the fifth was half-smoked, indicating the bomber hurriedly quenched it and pressed the bombing button when he spotted the motorcade clearly by naked eye, the newspaper said. "All five cigarettes were from the same make and were found in the same spot at the stairway, which suggests they were smoked by the bomber, because a passerby would not have left more than one cigarette butt at the same spot," Al Mustaqbal said. It said the stairway where the car-bomb ambusher waited was suitably distant from the bombing scene, providing at the same time an unobstructed naked eye view with no barriers against the radio waves of the remote-control set to detonate the car bomb. "The spot the ambusher used for hiding also provides a safe escape route uphill to Bliss Street near the Hobeish police station," the newspaper said. Hobeish is about one kilometer inland from the bombing scene at Ein Mreisseh seaside boulevard. Al Mustaqbal said forensic experts were examining the cigarette butts for possible latent fingerprints or saliva traces that could help a DNA test.

Beirut, Updated 06 Oct 04, 09:14