DAMASCUS, 14 October 2005 — Syria yesterday dismissed claims Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan committed suicide on Wednesday due to “differences with the government,” accusing the media of playing a key role in his death.
“Kanaan never complained of anything related to the Syrian regime, but he complained only of the false accusations by tendentious media which was responsible for pushing him to commit suicide,” Foreign Minister Farouk Shara told reporters at Kanaan’s funeral.
Kanaan was buried in his native village of Bhamra near the coastal city of Lattakia in northwestern Syria. Senior government officials, including Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Ottri, ministers and representatives of political parties attended the funeral.
Kanaan, who headed the Syrian Military Intelligence in Lebanon between 1982 and 2002, was questioned a few weeks ago by the UN team investigating the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
An hour before his death, Kanaan called the Voice of Lebanon Radio station denying any Syrian role in Hariri’s assassination.
“Kanaan’s death will not affect the investigation, and I believe that Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor heading the UN investigation team in Hariri’s killing, will deny the (inaccurate) information concerning his meetings with Syrian officials,” Shara added.
Sources close to Kanaan’s family were quoted by the Al-Diyar newspaper as saying that they were seeking legal opinion on whether it was possible to sue Mehlis for leaking some “baseless reports to the media that pushed Kanaan to commit suicide as a way to defend his pride and dignity as an honest officer with a long career in military and politics.”
A state investigation into the death of Kanaan yesterday found he committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth shortly after returning to his office from a brief trip home. Chief public attorney Muhammad Al-Louji said in a statement that Kanaan shot himself with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Louji said that following an examination of the body, and interviews with witnesses, “it was confirmed that... Kenaan placed the tip of the revolver in his mouth and fired it.”
