BEIRUT, 3 January 2006 — The UN commission investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri wants to interview Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Foreign Minister Farouk Shara.
“We have asked to interview Bashar, Shara and others,” Nasra Hassan, spokesperson for the UN probe said yesterday. “We are still waiting for an answer,” she added. Hassan refused to say when the request to interview Bashar was made.
The UN request follows an explosive interview by former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam to Al-Arabiya television last week in which he claimed Bashar had threatened Hariri months before his assassination.
Hassan also said the UN team had asked for an interview with Khaddam “as soon as possible.”
No official response from the government in Damascus was issued yesterday, but Munair Ghanim, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Syrian Parliament, told Al-Jazeera TV that the Syrian officials were hearing the UN demand from the media.
“Unfortunately, we still receive the decisions of the international committee probing Hariri’s assassination through the media,” Ghanim said. “This harms the secrecy and the procedures of the investigation.”
“When it is officially directed to the Syrian government, the decision will be studied by jurists at the Syrian Foreign Ministry,” he added.
The Syrian government yesterday said it would put Khaddam on trial for high treason and investigate him for corruption. “The Council of Ministers will take the necessary measures to try Khaddam for high treason, and to open an inquiry into corruption in a series of matters which will include seizing his assets,” the official daily newspaper, Ath-Thawra, said.
The newspaper said the government announcement meant it would follow up on demands made by MPs who called for Khaddam to be tried for treason and corruption.
Ath-Thawra also quoted ordinary Syrians as saying “punishing him is a national duty,” and calling Khaddam “a traitor who sold his conscience for a fistful of dollars.”
On Sunday, the ruling Baath party expelled the former vice president for comments it described as “slander which violates the principles of the nation.”
Parliamentary Speaker Mahmud Al-Abrash called yesterday for Khaddam to be brought to trial as quickly as possible, in a letter addressed to Justice Minister Mohammed Ghafri.
The UN investigation into Hariri’s murder has indirectly implicated Syrian officials in the murder through two separate interim reports, the last of which was presented in mid-December. The probe’s former chief investigator, Detlev Mehlis, said after the presentation of his second report that he believed “ Syria stood behind the assassination”. Damascus has denied any involvement in the Feb. 14 killing of Hariri.
In his first report presented to the UN Security Council last November, Mehlis said several sources claimed that Hariri had been terrorized by Bashar during a meeting, where the president threatened Hariri that he would “break Lebanon over his head” if he did not support the extension of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud’s mandate. However, Mehlis’ report added that the same meeting was described differently by Syrian officials, including Shara, who stressed that Bashar remained “courteous and respectful” of Hariri.
