Posted on 10/29/2005 9:34:14 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
DAMASCUS, Syria - Syrian President Bashar Assad issued an order Saturday for a special committee to investigate any Syrian involvement in the assassination of a former prime minister in neighboring Lebanon, the state news agency said.
The move comes as the U.N. Security Council considers a U.N. investigator's report that implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the Feb. 14 killing of Rafik Hariri and accused Assad's regime of not cooperating with the probe.
Syria sharply disputed the report's findings, but said it would cooperate in the U.N. investigation, which has been extended until Dec. 15.
Assad ordered the establishment of "a special judicial committee headed by the prosecutor-general and comprising the military prosecutor and a judge to be named by the justice minister," the official SANA news agency said.
The panel will "question Syrian civilians and military personnel on all matters relating to the U.N. investigation commission's mission," SANA said.
On Tuesday, chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis urged Syria to conduct its own investigation into the killing to help "fill in the gaps" over the coming weeks about who orchestrated the assassination.
Assad's decree said the special committee will cooperate with Mehlis' investigation and with Lebanese judicial authorities, who have been aiding the U.N. probe and also have charged four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals in connection with Hariri's killing.
The United States, France and Britain are promoting a Security Council resolution to be discussed Monday that would threaten tough sanctions against Syria if it failed to cooperate with the U.N. inquiry.
The resolution also would require Syria to detain any official or civilian that U.N. investigators consider a suspect in Hariri's killing and let the individual be questioned either outside Syria or without Syrian officials present.
The United States has said that would include calling Assad himself for questioning. The Syrian leader has not yet accepted U.N. requests to be interviewed in the investigation.
Russia, another permanent Security Council member with power to veto resolutions, expressed opposition to imposing sanctions on Syria.
Hariri's death in a Beirut car bombing that killed 20 others has brought widespread criticism for Syria, which many Lebanese blamed for the slaying of their popular former premier.
While Syria denied any involvement, it buckled under international pressure and withdrew its soldiers from Lebanon in April after a 29-year presence in its smaller neighbor.
Assad's order came a day after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made a surprise visit to Damascus to meet with the Syrian leader to discuss the international crisis facing his regime.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called the situation "complicated" and said his government would advise Assad's "to deal objectively and flexibly with all probabilities."
"We want to avoid another crisis in the Middle East," Aboul Gheit said.
He said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan planned to visit Cairo next month to meet with Mubarak as Arab states reach out to world powers, including the United States, in an effort to avoid an escalation of regional tensions.
Syrian president Bashar Assad, right, meeting his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak who arrived in Damascus Friday Oct. 28, 2005 in an expected visit to the Syrian capital. Mubarak raised at the meeting Syrian cooperation with the UN investigation in the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri. Assad promised to cooperate with the investigation according to the Syrian Arab News Agency. (AP Photo/SANA).
Yeah, Right!!! Like Clinton wanted a probe into Vince Foster's death...
Members of the Hezbollah guerilla group show military skills in the air during the annual rally to mark Al-Quds Day, Jerusalem Day, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 28, 2005. The militant Hezbollah group paraded its guerrilla army in Beirut Friday in a massive show of strength to counter international calls to disarm, while its fiery leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah backed beleaguered Syria in the face of intense pressure over the U.N. probe into the assassination of a Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Spare me..."round up the usual suspects"
</sarcasm>
Lol. Does Assad own a mirror? It'll greatly speed up his "investigation"
Maybe O.J. Simpson can help him find the real killer.
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