BEIRUT, 13 November 2005 — UN investigators probing the murder of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri have questioned pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, heightening pressure on the embattled regime in Damascus.

“President Emile Lahoud met with two members of the international fact-finding panel at 5 p.m. (Friday)... and gave them true and precise information concerning the telephone call received by the president’s office before the hideous crime,” a statement from Lahoud’s office said.

The six-hour meeting, Lahoud’s first with the team of UN investigators led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, underscores the president’s increasingly precarious position in the face of mounting calls to stand down.

Hariri’s killing in a Beirut bomb blast on Feb. 14 sparked an international outcry and eventually led Syria to withdraw its troops from neighboring Lebanon after a 29-year military presence.

Several close Lahoud aides have been arrested on charges including pre-meditated murder, and were named in a report issued by the UN team in October that implicated senior Syrian and Lebanese officials.

Lahoud’s interrogation came as US President George W. Bush called on Syria to stop trying to “intimidate and destabilize” the Lebanese government and to cooperate fully with the UN probe.

Lahoud’s spokesman Rafic Shalala said the “meeting between Lahoud and the committee was held at the request of the president who wants to clarify the telephone calls.”

Mehlis has previously said that Lahoud was not considered a “suspect.”

“Lahoud appeared as a witness only,” Shalala said. “He wants to speed up the judicial process because the case is starting to have a negative impact on the nation.”

The UN team has established that the brother of a key suspect called Lahoud’s telephone number minutes before the explosion that killed Hariri.

The suspect has been identified as Ahmad Abdel-Al, a prominent member of Al-Ahbash, a Lebanese charity with strong ties with Syria and the Lebanese presidency.

Lahoud’s office said a call was registered on one of the presidency telephones but that it was not Lahoud himself who took the call.

Mehlis is reported as wanting to interview six top Syrian security officials including President Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, also the head of military intelligence.

“We told Mehlis that he can come with his team to any place in Syria,” Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara said on the sidelines of a democracy conference in Bahrain yesterday.

“We have a suitable location, which is the headquarters of (UN) observers in the Golan Heights,” he said, referring to the observer force that maintains an area of separation between Syria and Israel in the mountainous territory.

But he categorically rejected the notion that such interviews could be held in Lebanon as the officials could be the target of protests.

“Syria will cooperate fully with the international committee headed by Mehlis and we have no reservations, except for the (preservation) of Syria’s sovereignty,” he said.

Shara also slammed the angry reaction from the United States to a major speech last week by Bashar, who hit back at foreign pressure over the Hariri murder and protested Damascus’ innocence in the crime.

“They probably do not realize the depth of the relations between the Syrian and Lebanese people... Such deeply rooted relations cannot be annulled by an official in Syria or Lebanon or from outside these two countries.”

In his speech Bashar lashed out at the Lebanese government — now run by largely anti-Syrian figures — and accused Prime Minister Fuad Siniora of kowtowing to Western countries.