Monday, January 2, 2006

Dramatic turn in UN Hariri assassination probe

Holy crapola - I didn't know that the UN could ever do this - kudos:

Dramatic turn in UN Hariri assassination probe: a formal demand to question Syrian president Bashar Assad and foreign minister Farouk a-Shara on their role in the crime.

This is the first time in UN annals that an inquiry commission established by the world body demands to quiz an incumbent head of state on the murder of an ex-prime minister of another nation.

He confirmed the UN report that found the Syrian president had threatened the murder of former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri months before his assassination. Haddam, whom Bashar unseated after he succeeded his father as president, denounced the Syrian president for refusing to sack General Rustoum Ghazaleh, the former Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon,immediately after the assassination.

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources note that Haddam insinuated in the interview that Assad had had pre-knowledge of the murder and could have prevented it. He clearly laid the crime at Ghazaleh’s door and made it clear that no part of Syrian intelligence is free to act without Assad’s authority. This veteran Syrian politician’s diatribe against Assad is unprecedented and shocked opinion in Damascus and the Arab world.