Hariri probe takes UN investigators to Syria

DAMASCUS - A UN team investigating the killing of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri moved to Syria to hear testimony from Syrian officers.

"The head of the international investigation committee Mr Detlev Mehlis arrived to Damascus today and he is expected to meet a number of Syrian persons as witnesses in the framework of his mission," the official Syrian news agency SANA said.

A Reuters reporter saw the team's convoy cross from Lebanon at the border post of Masnaa under heavy security earlier in the day.

A Syrian source said Mehlis and his team would hold their meetings in a secret location outside Damascus.

The team will question Syrian officers who had a role in Lebanon's security about the time Hariri was killed by a car bomb in February, as well as other senior officials, Lebanese sources say.

They included Rustom Ghazali, chief of intelligence in Lebanon, and senior aides Mohammad Khallouf and Jamae Jamae, the sources said.

A source familiar with the investigation in Beirut said on Tuesday that Mehlis had asked to meet eight Syrian officials and possibly more as the investigation progresses.

Many in Lebanon have blamed Syria, the dominant power in Lebanon for nearly three decades, for the February 14 attack that killed Hariri and 20 others. Damascus has denied any role.

"We really have nothing to worry about, therefore we have agreed, and we are, and we will provide full cooperation with a professional investigation (team) like Mr Mehlis'," Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah al-Dardari told a news conference on economic reform.

Syria agreed last week to allow Mehlis' visit after being accused of not cooperating with the probe, which began in June.

"Mehlis will be talking to Syrian officials as witnesses so he is not interrogating anybody," Dardari said. "It is a Syrian vital interest to find out the truth about the assassination Mr Hariri," he added of the slain former ally of Damascus.

The state-run newspaper Tishreen, a government mouthpiece, said Syria remained committed to cooperation with the United Nations but attacked what it described as politically motivated media speculation about the investigation's outcome.

"The unprecedented media commotion produced rumours and leaks that have no benefit in the effort to find the truth," it said in an editorial.

"It is obvious that those who foment this distortion and leap ahead of events by making pre-cast judgment seek political goals."

Hariri's killing sparked mass anti-Syrian protests in Beirut that forced Damascus to bow to world pressure and end its military presence in Lebanon in April.

Lebanon has charged three former security chiefs and the current head of the Republican Guard with murder in connection with the assassination. Their lawyers have said their clients are innocent.

- REUTERS