UN PANEL WANTS TO QUERY ASSAD ON HARIRI'S KILLING
Harold's List
Reform Party of Syria
Washington DC, January 2, 2006/RPS/ -- A UN commission of inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri wants to question Syrian president Baschar Assad, the commission's spokesman said Monday. The UN panel also want to speak to Syrian foreign minister Farouk Shara and former vice president Abdul-Halim Khaddam, spokesman Nasrat Hassan said. The request stems from an interview which Khaddam gave to the Dubai based television channel al-Arabiya last Friday in which he said that Assad had threatened Hariri on several occasions.
"No Syrian security service would have acted without President al-Assad having knowledge of the operation," Khaddam told al-Arabiya.
On Saturday the Syrian lawmakers at a special sitting of the parliament in Damascus denounced Khaddam as a "traitor" and said that the Saudi owned al-Arabiya was a "Jewish" television station.
The UN Security Council recently extended the mandate of the commission - which has already implicated several senior Syrian security officials in Hariri's killing - for another six months.
The killing of Hariri and 20 others in a February 14, 2005 bomb attack in Beirut prompted anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon and led to the Syrian troops' withdrawal from the country in April 2005 after a presence which had lasted almost three decades.
Reform Party of Syria
Washington DC, January 2, 2006/RPS/ -- A UN commission of inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri wants to question Syrian president Baschar Assad, the commission's spokesman said Monday. The UN panel also want to speak to Syrian foreign minister Farouk Shara and former vice president Abdul-Halim Khaddam, spokesman Nasrat Hassan said. The request stems from an interview which Khaddam gave to the Dubai based television channel al-Arabiya last Friday in which he said that Assad had threatened Hariri on several occasions.
"No Syrian security service would have acted without President al-Assad having knowledge of the operation," Khaddam told al-Arabiya.
On Saturday the Syrian lawmakers at a special sitting of the parliament in Damascus denounced Khaddam as a "traitor" and said that the Saudi owned al-Arabiya was a "Jewish" television station.
The UN Security Council recently extended the mandate of the commission - which has already implicated several senior Syrian security officials in Hariri's killing - for another six months.
The killing of Hariri and 20 others in a February 14, 2005 bomb attack in Beirut prompted anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon and led to the Syrian troops' withdrawal from the country in April 2005 after a presence which had lasted almost three decades.
posted by Marko at 1/02/2006 12:21:00 PM
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