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Foul play in Syrian Minister's death?

Rory McCarthy

Damascus under pressure over Hariri killing

BEIRUT: Syria's Interior Minister General Ghazi Kanaan, who was found dead in Damascus on Wednesday, had been questioned by the U.N. about the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri, and the investigation report is due out within days.

In a two-sentence statement, the official Syrian news agency said Gen Kanaan had committed suicide in his office, but some prominent anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon said immediately they doubted this account. Hours before he died, the General, aged 63, contacted a Lebanese radio station. He acknowledged he had been questioned by U.N. investigators, but said he had given no information against the Syrian state. The death is a sign of the immense pressure faced by Damascus ahead of the U.N. report into the murder on February 14 of Hariri; the millionaire had resigned as Prime Minister of Lebanon in October. Syria denied any role and condemned the assassination, but Hariri had fallen out with Damascus. Huge street protests in Beirut in the weeks afterward forced Syria to pull out troops from Lebanon, ending a 29-year occupation.

Then a German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis began an unprecedented U.N. investigation into the huge car bomb assassination. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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