Report recounts Assad threat to Hariri in Syria

SYRIA: Syria's president Bashar al-Assad threatened the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri less than six months before Hariri and 19 other people were murdered by a massive bomb on February 14th, the report written by Irish Deputy Garda Commissioner Peter FitzGerald for the UN Secretary General says.

Furthermore, Lebanese security services removed or destroyed and - most incriminating - planted false evidence on the site of the atrocity.

At a 10-minute meeting in Damascus in late August, Mr al- Assad told Mr Hariri he "would rather break Lebanon over the heads of Hariri and [ Druze leader Walid] Jumblatt than see his word in Lebanon broken," associates of Mr Hariri told Irish investigators, in testimonies which corroborated each other.

These witnesses, inside and outside Lebanon, saw the slain former prime minister shortly after his last meeting with Mr Assad. "Mr Assad then threatened both Mr Hariri and Mr Jumblatt with physical harm if they opposed the extension for [ the Syrian-appointed Lebanese president Émile] Lahoud," the report adds.

After the explosion, Lebanese authorities removed six vehicles from Mr Hariri's motorcade to the Helou police barracks, "thereby preventing any ballistic analysis, explosive analysis and evidence-gathering at the scene", the report says.

Lebanese investigators latched on to video footage from the HSBC bank security camera near the scene, showing a white Mitsubishi Canter pick-up truck slowly approaching the area of the explosion 1 minute and 49 seconds before Mr Hariri's motorcade was blown up. The white truck might have provided a credible theory, Mr FitzGerald notes.

But the credibility of the government's main line of investigation was "seriously damaged" by the certainty that "parts of a truck were brought to the scene of the explosion by a member of the security forces . . . after the assassination and were placed in the crater and subsequently photographed in the crater . . . thus creating serious suspicion and doubt about the actual involvement of this truck in the assassination."

Mr FitzGerald's conclusions coincide with two of the main demands of Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition: a call for an international independent investigation and the suggestion that leading Lebanese security officials must resign.

The report says there was a "distinct lack of commitment on the part of the Lebanese authorities to investigate the crime effectively". The local inquiry "was not carried out in accordance with acceptable international standards."

It was doubtful "that an international commission could carry out its tasks . . . while the current leadership of the Lebanese security services remains in office."

Mr Kofi Annan, the US and Britain immediately endorsed Mr FitzGerald's recommendation for an independent international investigation; it is likely the UN Security Council will pass a resolution to this effect.

Even President Lahoud said the United Nations should "do what is necessary to reveal the truth of the crime."

Faisal Mekdad, Syria's ambassador to the UN, was the last to hold out, accusing the US and France of creating division in Lebanon by pushing through resolution 1559 which demands a complete Syrian withdrawal, purporting that Syria does not interfere in Lebanese affairs and saying that the investigation should be an internal matter.

Mr FitzGerald envisages the international commission would have the power to interrogate witnesses and conduct searches.

There is no indication whether Mr Annan would call on the same three Garda officers (Mr FitzGerald, Det Chief Supt Martin Donnellan and Supt Pat Leahy) to head the commission, nor is it clear whether its inquiry would extend to Syrian territory.

The report concludes that the blast probably occurred above ground, with a charge of approximately 1,000 kg of TNT. It largely discredits the pro-Syrian claim that a Palestinian fundamentalist suicide bomber carried out the attack, presumably in the above-mentioned white Mitsubishi.

The text provides a lucid analysis of the Lebanese political scene, but technical details are either absent or were reserved for the confidential version presented to Mr Annan.

There is no allusion to the roadwork barriers which appeared on the scene of the explosion a few days before the assassination. Mr FitzGerald says that "three Mercedes [ in Mr Hariri's motorcade] were equipped with high-powered, signal-jamming devices (4GHz), which were operating at the time of the final journey," but he does not speculate how the bomb was detonated.

Because of the jamming devices, Mr Hariri's entourage say, the bomb could not have been detonated by remote control. The assassin would have needed line of sight and wire contact with the bomb site and would have been high up and at a safe distance, in the ruins of the Holiday Inn or in the Monroe Hotel.

The report blames Lebanese security and Syrian military intelligence for negligence and the government of Syria "for the political tension that preceded the assassination". Yet Mr FitzGerald cautions "that only a proper investigation - not political analysis - could lead to the identification of those who ordered, planned and carried out this heinous crime."