Syria’s former vice-president faces treason charge

SYRIA’S ruling Ba’ath Party stripped former Vice-President Abdul-Halim Khaddam of membership and joined parliament in demanding he be tried for high treason, the official news agency SANA reported yesterday.

On Friday, Mr Khaddam said in a television interview from Paris that Syrian President Bashar Assad had threatened former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri months before he was assassinated in a truck bombing on February 14, 2005.

Mr Khaddam, whose allegations provoked an outcry in official Syrian circles, told Al-Arabiya television that Mr Assad warned Mr Hariri in August 2004 against pushing for a new president in Lebanon. Mr Assad planned to extend the term of President Emile Lahoud, a pro-Syrian whom Mr Hariri was known to oppose.