BEIRUT, 16 October 2005 — The UN investigator probing the murder of Lebanon’s former premier has asked Damascus for permission to widen his inquiry into this week’s death of Syria’s interior minister, a key witness, a newspaper reported yesterday. The news came as Lebanon’s interior minister reportedly said authorities had taken measures similar to a “state of emergency” ahead of the publication of the UN report into the Feb. 14 assassination of Rafik Hariri.
Quoting Lebanese security sources, the As-Safir daily said German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis had “officially asked Syria to authorize him to inquire into this suicide and to carry out an autopsy” on Gen. Ghazi Kanaan.
Syrian authorities said Kanaan shot himself in the mouth with his personal revolver at his Damascus office. But some Lebanese papers, including one belonging to the Hariri family, have questioned Syria’s official version. Skeptics say Kanaan may have been murdered to keep him from revealing what he may have known about the case.
Last month, the Mehlis commission interviewed Kanaan, along with a number of other Syrian officials. Mehlis is due to submit his report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Lebanese officials on Oct. 21. Kanaan headed Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon for 20 years and was Syria’s virtual viceroy there. He was found dead in his Damascus office on Wednesday.
The murder of Hariri in a massive Beirut bomb blast, that also killed 20 others, has been widely blamed on Lebanon’s neighbor and longtime powerbroker, Syria. Damascus has roundly denied the allegations.
In reaction to the domestic and international outcry that followed the murder, Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon in April, and said that it had also pulled out all of its security agents.
In a separate development, an official said yesterday that Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora would travel to Paris tomorrow for talks with French and UN officials on the future status of homegrown and Palestinian militias in his country. Siniora will also meet Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who will be in the French capital as part of a wider European tour.
Meanwhile, according to the London-based Times newspaper yesterday, the US government has offered to help end the international isolation of Syria in exchange for Syrian acceptance of a list of “concessions.” The report, citing senior officials from the United States and the Arab world, said the US terms include Syria’s full cooperation with the UN inquiry into the assassination of Hariri. The other terms include ceasing any further interference in Lebanese politics, stopping all activities of Iraqi insurgents on Syrian territory and ceasing all support for Middle Eastern militant groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.
