Brother-in-law of Syrian leader implicated (UN / Hariri Assassination Probe)

UNITED NATIONS - The brother-in-law of Syria's president was implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and Lebanese intelligence officials helped organize it, according to a U.N. inquiry officially linking Damascus to the slaying for the first time.

The report into the Feb. 14 car bomb that killed the popular opposition leader and 20 others stopped short of directly blaming Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle. But it accused the regime of failing to cooperate in the inquiry and alleged that Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa lied in a letter to investigators.

It also cites one witness as saying Assad's brother-in-law, military intelligence chief Assef Shawkat, set up a false confession to Hariri's murder 15 days before the bombing.

But an earlier copy read by journalists because of a computer glitch named Assad's brother and included a second reference to Shawkat. That second reference said Shawkat, Assad's brother and three others decided to assassinate Hariri and met many times to plot the killing.

Chief investigator Detlev Mehlis said Friday he deleted the references because he did not want to give the impression the men were proven guilty.

Syria rejected the report, with Information Minister Mehdi Dakhlallah telling Al-Jazeera television it was "100 percent politicized" and "contained false accusations."

Mehlis' findings, issued Thursday to the Security Council, likely will inflame regional tensions and prompt the council to renew pressure on Syria to stop meddling in neighboring Lebanon. The council is expected to discuss the report Tuesday and may consider sanctions against Syria.

"Accountability is going to be very important for the international community," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday, declining to discuss next steps.

The decision to assassinate Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services," the report said.

At the time, Syria had about 14,000 troops in Lebanon and essentially controlled the country with its Lebanese government allies.

Mehlis was careful not to assign blame but cited witness testimony implicating several officials suspected of conspiring to assassinate Hariri. Lebanon has arrested four generals close to Syria.

The report also said Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, received a phone call minutes before the blast from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group. That man also called one of the four generals, Brig. Gen. Raymond Azar, then the head of military intelligence.

Lahoud's office said it "categorically denies" that the president received such a phone call.

The 53-page report outlines Hariri's worsening relationship with Syria and said he apparently was killed for political reasons. Hariri had fallen out with Syria and eventually resigned as prime minister in October 2004, a month after a decision to change Lebanon's laws and extend Lahoud's term.

Pro-Syrian forces accused Hariri of pushing a U.N. resolution adopted in September 2004 that unsuccessfully attempted to stop Lebanon's parliament from extending the term of Lahoud, Hariri's longtime rival.

The resolution also demanded Syria withdraw all its troops and intelligence operatives from Lebanon.

In the report, one Syrian witness living in Lebanon and claiming to have worked for Syrian intelligence said Lebanese and Syrian officials decided to assassinate Hariri about two weeks after the resolution. In January, a senior Syrian officer in Lebanon told the witness: "Hariri was a big problem to Syria."

"Approximately a month later, the officer told the witness that there soon would be an `earthquake' that would rewrite the history of Lebanon," the report said.

The report quoted another witness as saying Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, who also was arrested, ended an October 2004 conversation by saying: "We are going to send him on a trip, bye, bye Hariri." The witnesses were not identified.

Hariri's death set off huge anti-Syrian street protests in Lebanon and intense international pressure that forced Damascus to withdraw its troops from Lebanon a few months later, ending nearly three decades of military domination.

The report includes one reference to Shawkat, who oversees Syria's domestic and foreign intelligence. One witness said Shawkat forced a man to tape a claim of responsibility for Hariri's killing 15 days before it occurred.

That tape was aired on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel the day of the blast but was discredited by Mehlis investigators as an attempted diversion. The man who made the tape, Abu Adass, left his home Jan. 16 and likely was taken to Syria, where he disappeared.

The report meticulously details how Hariri's movements and phone conversations were monitored for months. It casts suspicion on a decision by another arrested general, Ali Hajj, to reduce Hariri's state security detail from 40 to eight in November.

Mehlis identified Sheik Ahmed Abdel-Al, a prominent figure in the pro-Syrian Al-Ahbash Sunni Muslim Orthodox group, as "a key figure in an ongoing investigation." Abdel-Al had extensive contacts with top Lebanese security officials before and after the blast, and tried to hide information from investigators.

It was his brother — also a group member — who called Lahoud before the blast.

Mehlis said there still were many leads to follow and asked for more time to work with Lebanese investigators. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said he would extend the probe until Dec. 15.

"If the investigation is to be completed, it is essential that the government of Syria fully cooperate with the investigating authorities, including by allowing interviews to be held outside Syria and for interviewees not to be accompanied by Syrian officials," Mehlis said.

The report did not refer to Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan, who was questioned by investigators. Kenaan, who effectively controlled the Lebanese government for 20 years as Syria's intelligence chief there, was found dead in his office last week with a gunshot wound to his mouth.

Syria said Kenaan committed suicide, but some in Lebanon and at least one veteran U.S. mediator for the Middle East suggested he may have been killed in an attempted cover-up of Syrian involvement in Hariri's killing.

Hariri probe puts Syria on collision course with UN

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051021/wl_nm/hariri_dc_1;_ylt=AszjjugPmfey5LCQiQnnKPuaK8MA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--

Nadim Ladki

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria headed on Friday for a diplomatic showdown with the Security Council and Washington after a U.N. probe implicated high-ranking Syrian officials in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

The probe led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis named as suspects in the February 14 killing members in the inner circle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including his brother-in-law.

The report said Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara gave investigators false information and accused top pro-Syrian Lebanese officials of a major role in the killing, with suspicion cast even on President Emile Lahoud.

Syria dismissed the charges as "far from the truth," while Lahoud denied them and indicated he would not be driven from office despite calls for him to resign.

The United States and its allies appeared to be laying the ground for economic sanctions on Syria, whose decades-long domination of its small neighbor Lebanon was strongly opposed by Hariri.

A report submitted to the 15-nation Security Council on Thursday said there was probable cause to believe the decision to kill Hariri could not have been taken "without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security official(s)," nor carried out without the complicity of Lebanese security services.

But it said the probe was still incomplete. In a letter accompanying the report Secretary-General Kofi Annan extended the team's work until December 15.

However, it looked set to start the ball rolling for diplomatic action against Syria, already isolated over U.S.-led charges of meddling in Iraq and Lebanon.

The United States, France and Britain have been discussing possible U.N. resolutions as a follow-up to the report, but no texts had been drafted, diplomats said.

Diplomats in Lebanon said economic sanctions could be on the table when the Council meets on October 25 to discuss the report.

Washington was studying the report -- which did not call for the arrests of any of the officials mentioned -- and would decide in days how to proceed, U.S. ambassador John Bolton said.

Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah blasted it.

"The report is ... a political statement directed toward Syria," he told Al Jazeera TV.

"The report is far from the truth. It was not professional and will not arrive at the truth but will be part of a deception and great tension in this region."

Hariri was a strong critic of Syria's domination of Lebanon, and many Lebanese have long suspected a link between his killing and the Syrian authorities and their Lebanese allies.

His murder along with those of 20 other people in a suicide truck bombing in a Beirut street sparked international outrage and Lebanese protests that led to Syria ending its 29-year military presence in the country.

INNER CIRCLE

Investigators presented evidence that Assad's powerful brother-in-law, Major General Asef Shawkat, could have figured in the plot, setting up known militant Ahmed Abu Adass as a decoy by forcing him to tape a video claiming responsibility for the murder weeks before it took place.

According to one unidentified witness cited in the report, Shawkat and Assad's brother, Maher Assad, were among a group of Syrian and Lebanese security officials who "decided to assassinate" Hariri in mid-September 2004 and then planned the murder during a series of meetings in Damascus.

Their names were edited out of the final document but were visible in an earlier draft seen by Reuters.

The report said the Syrian authorities, after initially hesitating to help, had cooperated "to a limited degree." But several individuals had tried to mislead investigators "by giving false or inaccurate statements," it said.

Even a letter addressed to the commission by Foreign Minister Shara "proved to contain false information."

His deputy, Walid al-Moualem, also lied in a statement to investigators about what was said during a meeting with Hariri on February 1, it said.

Several anti-Syrian members of the Lebanese parliament called on Lahoud to step down. MP Jibran Tueini also accused Assad of ordering the murder. Assad insisted this week his country was "100 percent innocent" in the case.

The report said a suspect "made a call minutes before the blast, at 1247 hrs" to Lahoud's mobile phone.

Lahoud's press office denied the president took such a call and indicated he would not be forced to resign over the charges.

It said the accusation was baseless and "part of pressure campaigns against the president, his role and the national responsibilities he is shouldering and will continue to shoulder in this critical time of Lebanon's history."

Rustom Ghazali, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon at the time, also appeared to have played a key role in the plot, according to the report.

It presented similarly damning evidence on the four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals arrested and charged earlier in connection with Hariri's killing, on Mehlis' recommendation.

Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan died last week in what officials said was suicide, three weeks after he was questioned by investigators in his capacity as a witness in the case.

Ahmed Jibril, head of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), denied the report's claims that it played a role in the assassination.

(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff and Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations, Lin Noueihed and Alaa Shahine in Beirut)

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syria hotly dismissed on Friday a U.N. report that linked embattled President Bashar Assad's government in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, as Damascus geared up to fight off growing Western sentiment to punish it with crippling economic sanctions.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telegraphed the Bush administration's next move by declaring that Syria must be held accountable.

``Accountability is going to be very important for the international community,'' she said.

The U.N. report is the latest development in what has been an extremely bad diplomatic patch for the Syrians and represents an intensification of censure from many parts of the world over its conduct in the Middle East.

``This is the worst period in Syria's modern history,'' said Hazem Saghieh, a senior Lebanese columnist with the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper. ``I do not rule out a confrontation with the international community and sanctions on Syria.''

While the U.N. findings did not directly incriminate Assad, the report cited a witness who claimed that Assef Shawkat, Assad's brother-in-law and the Syrian military intelligence chief, forced a man to tape a claim of responsibility for Hariri's killing 15 days before it occurred. It also said Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa lied in a letter to the investigating commission.

In Lebanon, the anti-Syrians hailed the report as a long-awaited truth-telling about Syria's alleged complicity in the brutal political murder and Damascus' long and vast interference in Lebanese internal affairs during nearly three decades of military occupation.

But pro-Syrian Lebanese politicians vilified the findings that were likely will deepen explosive political divisions in the country.

In Damascus, those ordinary Syrians who would comment on the report were of one mind with the country's Lebanese supporters.

``This is a big fabrication,'' said Basil Deheim, a 26-year-old marketing executive, sitting with friends at a packed coffee shop where the theme song from the 1970s movie ``Love Story'' played in the background.

``I don't believe it,'' he added, pointing to a large-screen TV showing continuous coverage of the probe on an Arab satellite channel. No other customer was watching.

In one of the most critical parts of the U.N. report, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis said Syria must cooperate if the investigation was to succeed. The inquiry, which was ordered by the U.N. Security Council on April 8, was extended for a second time by Secretary-General Kofi Annan until Dec. 15.

The U.N. report coincides with heavy and increasing U.S. pressure on Syria to stop interfering in Lebanon, to shut its border to anti-American insurgents crossing into Iraq and to halt support for Palestinian militant groups. Syria has denied all the accusations.

Compounding the potential damage of the report, Damascus's deteriorating ties with Washington put Syria in deeper isolation, with an unstated moratorium in place on visits by high-ranking Western officials and the shelving of an EU-Syria trade association agreement.

Syria's relations with fellow Arab countries are only slightly better. While U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia worry about instability in Syria, they also will find it ``embarrassing'' to have come to Damascus' assistance should it's alleged involvement in the assassination is proven, Saghieh said.

The drive for sanctions against the Assad regime is under full steam. Earlier this week, a U.S. official and two U.N. diplomats said the United States and France were preparing new Security Council resolutions critical of Syria for its role in the Hariri assassination and its alleged arming of anti-Israeli militias in Lebanon.

Sanctions would further weaken Syria's struggling economy. A recent study by the United Nations Development Program and the Syrian government found that 5.3 million Syrians, or 30.1 percent of the 18 million population, lived in poverty. The labor market, the report said, was caught in a ``double squeeze,'' with the job market unable to keep pace with high population growth. Unemployment is believed to be at least 20 percent.

Joshua Landis, a University of Oklahoma professor who is spending the year in Damascus as a Fulbright scholar, said the Syrians need to move quickly to try to defuse the notion they are not cooperating with the U.N. probe.

``If it looks like it's going to stonewall, then the Americans will have a good case to make that they need sanctions in order to force Syria to comply,'' Landis said.

But, he added, the Syrian political establishment is very divided on how to move forward on the issue. Conservatives believe Syria is in a strong position vis a vis the Americans. The Syrian hard-liners think the United States is sinking in the quicksand of Iraq and has reached the end of a failed policy to curb Iran's nuclear program.

The more liberal wing of the political establishment, Landis said, views American policy as creating a new order in the Middle East - even as it flounders in Iraq. What's more, he says that factions argues, Damascus no longer has any allies for its current foreign policy and must remake itself by opening up the economy and cooperating with its neighbors.

``The big question is who will win,'' said Landis.

So where does Assad stand?

``He wants to modernize but he wants to keep an authoritarian state structure,'' Landis said.

Syrian officials Friday stuck to the official line that preceded the publication of the U.N. report, asserting Syria's innocence in the Hariri killing and declaring the document was heavily politicized because of Syria's staunch anti-Israeli position.

Information Minister Mahdi Dakhlallah said the report was ``a political statement directed against Syria.''

It was based on witnesses ``who are well known for their anti-Syria stands,'' Dakhlallah's office said, charging that the U.N. assessment lacked hard evidence and was based mainly on ``gossip.''

He told Al-Jazeera television the investigation was ``part of a pressure campaign against Syria which does not stop at accusing Syria of anything evil that happens in the world.''

George Jabbour, a Syrian legislator, said the report was ``extremely political'' and harsh on Syria, while Elias Murad, the editor-in-chief of the ruling party's al-Baath newspaper, said it was ``political'' rather than a judicial report.

But Michel Kilo, a Syrian writer and political analyst who frequently criticizes the government, called on Damascus to produce facts to counter evidence in the report.

While the report contained some gaps, ``I am convinced that it was professional,'' Kilo said.

In Israel, officials cited the report as more evidence of the need for changes in the Syrian leadership.

Referring to Assad and his relatives, Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said: ``If it is true that the (Syrian) government is involved in the murder (of Hariri), this will shake up the rule of the Assads.''

Syria was the main power broker in Lebanon until April, when it was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon under international pressure following the Hariri assassination.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5360397,00.html

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