Lebanon: Syrian denies threatening murdered PM

A Syrian minister denied threatening assassinated Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, as the US and Britain called for an international stand against Damascus.

The call comes in the wake of a United Nations report that implicated Syrian officials in the Hariri’s murder.

Meanwhile Syria, which dismissed the report as an American plot, began a diplomatic drive to explain its position.

The UN report, issued last week, implicated Syria in the February 14 bombing that killed Hariri, an opponent of Syria’s domination of Lebanon. The report also said the Syrian government did not co-operate with the UN investigation – a charge that Syria also denies.

Deputy foreign minister Walid Moallem, blamed what he said was America’s aim of dominating the region for the pressure on Syria. He denied that he had threatened Hariri days before he was assassinated, as the UN report said.

“This is totally untrue,” Moallem said in the first response by a Syrian official named in the report.

“I did not go to Premier Hariri to make threats. I went to him to inform him about my mission and ask him to co-operate in order for the mission to succeed,” Moallem said in a call to a Syrian TV talk show.

The UN report refers to a tape of a February 1 conversation between Moallem and Hariri, which records Hariri complaining that the security services were waging a campaign against him.

“But Lebanon will never be ruled from Syria. This will no longer happen,” Hariri told Moallem, according to the report.

The report says Moallem told Hariri “we and the (security) services here have put you into a corner”.

“Please do not take things lightly,” the report quotes Moallem as saying.

The UN report said the tape “clearly contradicts” the testimony that Moallem gave to the UN commission investigating Hariri’s killing on September 20.

In that testimony, Moallem “falsely described the February 1 meeting as ‘friendly and constructive’ and avoided giving direct answers to the questions put to him”, the report said.

The US-British call for action, in a joint BBC interview by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, underlined the growing pressure on Syria as it faced possible action by the UN Security Council later this week.

“The report indicated that people of a high level of this Syrian regime were implicated,” Straw told the BBC. “We also have evidence …. Of false testimony being given by senior people in the regime. This is very serious.”

Rice called for “a firm response” from the international community.

Officials in Washington have said privately that the US is considering pushing for possible UN sanctions against Syria, or to have any criminal cases heard by an international tribunal.

Straw said earlier that UN Security Council members would consider sanctions. But it is not clear if the United States and Britain have key members like Russia on their side.

On Saturday, the Russian foreign ministry called for caution in responding to the report, saying it would require a “thorough study and analysis” and warned against politicising the Security Council’s discussion of the report set for tomorrow.

The report found that the bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 other people in Beirut could not have been carried out without the complicity of the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services.

Syrian president Bashar Assad sent a message to the members of the security council yesterday concerning Syria’s position and the consultations on the UN report, Syria’s official news agency reported. The Syrian foreign ministry delivered the letters to representatives of the countries in Damascus, but the content of the message was not divulged.

Syria’s parliament also set up a committee of specialists to study the UN report.

Also in Damascus yesterday, the Central Command of Syria’s National Progressive Front criticised the UN report, saying it was based on “suspicions and testimonies of unreliable persons who lack credibility”.

The front, headed by Assad, is Syria’s highest decision-making body. A front statement, carried by Syria’s official news agency Sana, said the report contained “contradictions and twisting of facts”.

In addition, about 100 Syrian lawyers marched to the United Nations’ headquarters in Beirut to protest at the report. They handed a UN official a letter addressed to secretary general Kofi Annan, which said the report contained “gross legal mistakes and violations of the simplest rules and measures of judicial authorities”.

Syria has long argued that its hardline position on the Arab-Israeli conflict and its support of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups are the cause of pressure from Washington.

The US accuses Syria of interfering in Lebanon, allowing militants to cross into Iraq and supporting Palestinian militant groups.