Chief UN investigator Serge Brammertz interviewed Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad Tuesday over Syria's alleged role in the
killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri,
according to a source in Syria's ruling Baath Party.
"The meeting has ended and Brammertz returned to Lebanon," the
source said.
Brammertz is in charge of a United Nations investigation into
the killing of Hariri and 22 others in a truck bombing in Beirut in
February 2005.
It was the first meeting between UN investigators and the Syrian
leader since the inquiry opened in June last year. No indication on
how the meeting went was immediately available.
Brammertz also met Syrian Vice-President Farouk al-Shara, who
was foreign minister when Hariri was assassinated, the source
said.
A Western diplomat said Brammertz had been expected to have
separate meetings with Assad and Shara, in line with a deal reached
with the UN investigation commission.
Syria has been in economic and political uncertainty since a UN
report issued last year by Brammertz's predecessor, Detlev Mehlis,
implicated senior Syrian security officials in Hariri's killing and
said Syria was impeding the inquiry.
Syria denied involvement. A follow-up report by Brammertz in
March said groundwork had been laid for better co-operation with
Damascus. It did not clear the Syrian authorities.
Assad, who has looked relaxed in recent television appearances,
has said that any Syrian official found to have been involved in
the assassination would be tried by the Syrian legal system for
treason.
Anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians say that under Syria's strictly
top-down system of security and government, there could not have
been Syrian involvement in the killing without Assad's
knowledge.
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Ibrahim al-Daraji, a law professor at Damascus University, said the
meeting with Brammertz would help dispel a sinister image of the
Syrian Government planted by its enemies.
"The fact that Brammertz is here shows that Syria has no problem
in seeking the truth about the Hariri killing and co-operating with
the inquiry," Daraji said.
"The technical and political standards governing the interviews
remain a secret, but it is understood that Syrian sovereignty will
be respected," he said.
Daraji said Assad was expected to deny vehemently that he
threatened Hariri during a meeting on August 26, 2004 in Damascus
that discussed the extension of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's
term in office.
"The president said publicly this was not true. It is simply not
in his nature to threaten anyone," Daraji said.
Abdel-Halim Khaddam, a former vice-president who defected to
Paris last year, has accused Assad of threatening Hariri and
involvement in his murder.
(China Daily April 26, 2006)
