Syrian leader’s brother-in-law linked to murder

THE brother-in-law of Syria’s president has been implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, according to a UN inquiry.

The report that officially linked Damascus to the slaying for the first time also said that Lebanese intelligence officials helped organise it.

The exhaustive report into the February 14 car bomb that killed the popular opposition leader and 20 others stopped short of fingering Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle. But it accused the regime of failing to co-operate in the inquiry and alleged Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa lied in a letter to the investigating commission.

It also cites one witness as saying Mr Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, Syria’s military intelligence chief, set up a false confession to Mr Hariri’s murder 15 days before it took place.

Syria rejected the report.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was deeply troubled by the report and the international community must find a way to hold Syrian authorities accountable for the death.

Chief investigator Detlev Mehlis’s findings were issued to the UN Security Council on Thursday and will almost certainly inflame tensions in the region.

The Security Council is likely to use the report to renew pressure on Syria to ease its continued influence on Lebanon. The council is expected to discuss it on Tuesday, and may consider sanctions against Syria.

The decision to assassinate Mr Hariri “could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organised without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services,” the report said.

At the time of Mr Hariri’s assassination, Syria had about 14,000 troops in Lebanon and essentially controlled the country along with its Lebanese government allies.

Mr Mehlis was careful not to assign blame but cites witness testimony that strongly implicates several officials suspected of conspiring to assassinate Mr Hariri. Lebanon has already arrested four of them, all Lebanese generals close to Syria.

The report also raised questions about Lebanon’s pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, alleging he received a phone call minutes before the deadly blast from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group. The same man also called one of four generals arrested, Brigadier General Raymond Azar, who at the time was head of Lebanon’s military intelligence.

Mr Lahoud’s office said it “categorically denies” that the president received such a phone call.

The 53-page report outlines Mr Hariri’s worsening relationship with Syrian officials and said the motive for his killing appeared to have been political.

Mr Hariri had fallen out with Syria and eventually resigned as prime minister in October 2004, a month after a decision to change Lebanon’s laws and extend Mr Lahoud’s term.

Mr Hariri’s death set off huge anti-Syrian street protests in Lebanon and intense international pressure which forced Damascus to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon a few months later.

The report includes a single reference to Mr Shawkat, President Assad’s brother-in-law who oversees Syria’s domestic and foreign intelligence operations. According to one witness, Mr Shawkat forced a man to tape a claim of responsibility for Mr Hariri’s killing 15 days before it occurred.

That tape was aired on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel the day of the blast but was discredited by the Mehlis investigators as an apparent attempt to divert attention from the real perpetrators.

Mr Mehlis said there were still many leads to follow before all the details of Mr Hariri’s killing will be known and asked for more time to work with Lebanese investigators.

In a letter accompanying the report, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he would extend the investigation until December 15.

In one of the most critical parts of the report, Mr Mehlis said Syria must cooperate if the continued investigation is to succeed.

There was not a single reference in the report to Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan, who had been questioned by the Mehlis team. Mr Kenaan, who was Syria’s intelligence chief in Lebanon for 20 years and effectively controlled its government, was found dead in his office last week with a gunshot wound to his mouth.

Officially, Syria said he committed suicide. But some in Lebanon and at least one veteran US mediator for the Middle East suggested he may have been killed to try to cover up Syrian involvement in the Hariri assassination.