Killers of Lebanese leader 'must face international court'

Published on Sunday 23 October 2005 00:23

THE son of the slain former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri, called yesterday for an international court to punish his killers as pressure mounted on Syria after a damning United Nations probe into the murder.

George Bush, the US president, urged the UN on Friday to meet quickly to consider a response to the investigation that implicated senior Syrian officials in Hariri's assassination in a bomb attack on February 14.

A UN report said last week that the decision to kill Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials" colluding with counterparts in Lebanon.

Hariri's son and political heir, Saad, said in a televised address to Lebanon from his temporary residence in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that he was seeking justice, not revenge.

"We call on the international community to uphold its support for the international commission into the assassination of Mr Hariri to unearth the full truth and bring the perpetrators to justice in an international court," he said.

Syrian officials have dismissed the UN report as political, claiming the charges were false but said yesterday they might allow UN investigators to quiz Syrian officials.

"If there is any demand coming from the commission we will discuss it with the commission and we might agree," said Riad al-Daoudi, a Syrian foreign ministry official.

President Bush said: "The report is deeply disturbing," and added that he had asked his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to request that the UN "convene a session as quickly as possible" to discuss the report.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said the Security Council, which is meeting on Tuesday, would consider sanctions.

The council may ask for Syria to co-operate with the UN investigation led by a German prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis. But it is uncertain if Bush was seeking a larger, higher-level session.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, extended the Mehlis investigation for three months, suggesting no strong action is expected until the inquiry ends on December 15.

The Bush administration has been at odds with Syria for some time, accusing Damascus of doing too little to stop foreign fighters from entering neighbouring Iraq. Syria, in turn, says the US has not done enough to secure the border or deliver promised technical help.

At the United Nations, the report's credibility came into question after a final version omitted the names of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's brother and brother-in-law from a paragraph on who made the decision to kill Hariri.

The paragraph initially named the Syrian president's brother, Maher Assad, and his brother-in-law, Major General Asef Shawkat, among others.

Mehlis said he deleted the names when he learned the report would be made public, as he only had one witness.

The report said a person in touch with all the plotters had telephoned Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud just before the blast. That led to calls for Lahoud's resignation among anti-Syrian MPs in Beirut.

Hariri was a strong critic of Syria's domination of Lebanon, and many Lebanese have long suspected a link between his killing and the Syrians.