UN report implicates Syria in Hariri’s murder
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Senior officials in the Syrian security services most likely approved the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, a UN commission probing the assassination has concluded.
The commission’s report released Thursday cited “converging evidence” of Syrian and Lebanese involvement and accused Damascus of blocking and misleading the investigation.
“There is probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate. could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organised without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services,” the report said.
The document was delivered to UN chief Kofi Annan by German magistrate Detlev Mehlis, who led the commission’s four-month investigation into the massive bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others in Beirut last February.
It was also sent to the 15 members of the UN Security Council as well as to the Lebanese government before being made public late Thursday.
A US State Department spokesman said there would be no public reaction from Washington until the report had been closely studied.
US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton called the commission’s conclusions “clearly troubling”.
In Lebanon, news of the report drew renewed calls for the resignation of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, who denied claims by the commission that he received a phone call from a key suspect minutes before the bomb blast that killed Hariri.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an interview with CNN last week said neither he nor his government were involved in the assassination: “This is against our principles and my principles. I would never do such a thing in my life. It is not my nature to threaten anybody.”
The slaying touched off an international outcry and led many in Lebanon to point the finger at Damascus, hastening Syria’s departure from its smaller neighbour in April after a 29-year military presence.
Damascus has strenuously denied any involvement in or prior knowledge of the murder, but the UN report said Syria’s pervasive military intelligence presence in Lebanon made such denials ring hollow.
