Lebanon tribunal says can hear El Sayed file request

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The U.N.-backed court investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri said on Friday it had the jurisdiction to hear motions by a former general once jailed in the case.

Jamil El Sayed was one of four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals jailed in the investigation in 2005, but the Special Tribunal for Lebanon ordered his release in April 2009 for lack of evidence.

In July he appeared before the tribunal in the body's first ever public hearing, seeking the right to get information from the court in support of a planned libel case against those who accused him.

Prosecutors argued the tribunal did not have jurisdiction to hear El Sayed's request, since its mandate limits it to prosecuting issues around Hariri's death. They also said that El Sayed did not have the legal standing to appear before the court because he had not been accused of any crimes before it.

But Judge Daniel Fransen ruled on Friday it was in the interest of justice to allow El Sayed's request to proceed. He added that since El Sayed's release in 2009 was crafted specifically to allow for the possibility of future charges, he had standing to appear before the court.

However, Fransen also said in his order that El Sayed's access to his files could potentially be limited in the interest of national security and protecting open investigations.

Fransen, formerly a terrorism judge in Belgium, ordered the prosecution and El Sayed's attorneys to answer a series of questions by October 1 relating to the contents of his files, applicable limitations on access to them and in what way El Sayed should be allowed access to the files.

Hariri's assassination enveloped Lebanon in its worst crisis since the 1975-90 civil war, and tensions around the tribunal and its mission have run high.

(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Mark Heinrich)