Witness says he implicated Syria in Hariri murder

DAMASCUS - A Syrian witness who has accused the son of Lebanon's slain former prime minister of bribing him to testify falsely to a UN murder inquiry, said his testimony was the main evidence against Syria.

Hosam Taher Hosam said a report by chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis to the Security Council implicating Syrian and Lebanese officials in the February 14 assassination of Rafik al-Hariri was based mainly on his false allegations.

"It depended on my testimony by as much as 40 per cent," Hosam, a barber, who said he had been an agent for Syrian and Lebanese intelligence in Lebanon, told a news conference.

Hosam, who said he had fled to Syria from Lebanon on Sunday after two failed attempts, said Saad al-Hariri had told him he was convinced Damascus was behind his father's death.

"He had a feeling without proof that Syrian intelligence killed his father," he said.

A spokesman for Hariri denied Hosam's statements. "This claim is fabricated. It is a lie and it is baseless," spokesman Hani Hammoud told Hariri-owned Future Television in Beirut.

"No person from the Hariri family met this character or had direct or indirect contact with him," he said.

The UN International Independent Investigation Committee (UNIIC) confirmed Hosam was a witness and said he had signed a statement on Sept. 1 that said he was testifying voluntarily and had not been forced, threatened or given incentives.

"On several occasions, Mr Hosam expressed fear to UNIIIC that he and his family could be harmed by Syrian security elements," the inquiry said in a statement released in Beirut.

It said Hosam had identified himself as a former Syrian intelligence agent, but made no comment on his assertions about the weight placed on his testimony in Mehlis' interim report.

Ibrahim al-Darraji, spokesman for Syria's own investigation into Hariri's death, said Hosam's new testimony might discredit the conclusions of the report Mehlis submitted in October.

"From a legal point of view if the report is based on this testimony then it has collapsed," Darraji, an international law expert, said in the joint news conference with Hosam.

Hosam, reiterating remarks he made on Syrian television, said an elaborate scheme of torture, threats and bribery had forced him to testify against Syrian and Lebanese officials.

His appearance came after Damascus agreed to allow five Syrian officials to be questioned by Mehlis at UN offices in Vienna in connection with Hariri's assassination.

Hosam said followers of Hariri and other anti-Syrian officials had held him for a while in Lebanon and had wanted him to go to Vienna to confront the Syrians to be quizzed by Mehlis.

He said his captors had wanted him to implicate Maher al-Assad, a brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and his brother-in-law and military intelligence chief, Major General Asef Shawkat.

Hosam said he had been tortured, injected with drugs and offered US$1.3 million ($1.85 million) by Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa to tell the investigators he had seen the truck used in Hariri's killing in a Syrian-controlled military facility.

Syria kept a tight grip on its small neighbour Lebanon for nearly three decades until a Lebanese and international outcry over Hariri's death forced it to withdraw its troops in April.

Hosam also accused Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh of arranging for other witnesses to testify falsely to Mehlis.

He identified an anchorman at Future Television of playing the topmost role in the scheme.

Mehlis has interviewed more than 500 people about Hariri's killing, diplomatic sources say. His report did not name Hosam.

- REUTERS