LONDON, 5 November 2005 — Syria will let UN investigators trying to identify the killers of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri question Syrian officials in Damascus on their own, the Syrian ambassador to London said yesterday.
Chief United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis has complained that Syrian security figures interviewed in Damascus last month appeared to give only prepared responses. The Syrians had insisted that other officials attend the interviews.
“There shouldn’t be a problem to meet with them as witnesses any time,” the ambassador, Sami Khiyami, told Reuters.
“Mehlis can meet them completely alone, even choose a place in Damascus with a UN flag,” he said, adding that the investigators would be free to produce their witnesses at the interviews, while keeping their identities secret if necessary.
The UN Security Council demanded last week that Syria cooperate fully with Mehlis’ inquiry into the Beirut bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others or face “further action”.
Mehlis, who pointed to Syrian and Lebanese involvement in the assassination in an interim report in October, also accused Damascus of failing to cooperate properly with his mission.
Khiyami said his understanding of the Security Council resolution was that Mehlis must get the approval of a council committee before naming anyone as suspects in Hariri’s killing.
Asked if Syrian President Bashar Assad would agree to be interviewed for the investigation, the ambassador said: “Let us not forget that he is the symbol of the country. Mehlis can ask to meet him, and I don’t think there should be a problem, but there is no other way to meet the president but to ask for an audience.”
Mehlis is expected soon to request interviews with Syrian officials, including members of Bashar’s inner circle such as his brother Maher Assad, a key military commander, and his brother-in-law and military intelligence chief Assef Shawkat.
Syria’s interior minister and former intelligence chief in Lebanon, Ghazi Kanaan, was found dead in his office last month, about three weeks after the UN investigators had questioned him. Syrian authorities said he had committed suicide.
Damascus has come under fierce international pressure since Hariri’s Feb. 14 killing. It has already had to pull its troops out of neighboring Lebanon after a 29-year presence.
The United States, France and Britain sponsored the Security Council resolution after Mehlis concluded that Hariri’s assassination could not have been plotted without the knowledge of Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies.
Syria denies any hand in the killing and dismisses Mehlis’ report as politicized. The resolution obliges Damascus to detain any suspects and make them available to UN investigators.
“Syria will allow the international investigation committee to meet any Syrian it wishes to meet, including those it met in the past or any others it requests to meet,” an official at the Syrian Foreign Ministry told Reuters in Damascus. He said Mehlis would also receive full cooperation from Syria’s own investigation panel, formed by Bashar on Saturday.
“The Syrian investigation committee held its first meeting on Thursday and it will coordinate and cooperate with the UN committee. It also plans to seek help from independent experts from Syria and other countries,” the official said.
Syria’s official news agency quoted the Syrian committee’s chairwoman, Ghada Murad, as saying that anyone with information about Hariri’s assassination should contact the committee.
Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview published yesterday he was confident his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad would comply with international demands over the probe into Hariri’s assassination.
