French judges have released one of the Mehlis report's key suspects.

Detlev Mehlis was the former UN investigator into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri (below: his replacement, Serge Brammertz). He relied on heresay and testimony from anti-Syrian journalists and politicians, according to his critics.

But he injected credibility into his report with two key Syrian witnesses. Mohammad Zuhair Siddiq and Husam Taher Husam.

Last year Husam admitted that Sa'ad Al-Hariri had given him $1.3 million for his testimony to Mehlis that Lebanese officials and Syrians killed Rafuq Al-Hariri. He also claimed that the confession came under torture by Hariri.

Meanwhile, the Mehlis Commssion asked French authorities to arrrest Mohammad Zuhair Siddiq, their other Syrian witness. They now suspect that he was involved in the murder. France arrested him on the basis that he had lied to the UN judges.

But now they've released him, and dropped all charges against him. Apparently, the French legal system does not allow someone to be convicted without a very un-Lebanese concept: 'evidence'.

With the Mehlis report looking incresingly tenuous, there are reports that the US and France are hatching a plan to bring Syria in from the cold. More soon...