 Syrian President Bashar Assad has slammed the UN's fact-finding mission into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri and denied its central accusation that he threatened Hariri with physical harm.
| "Nope. Nope. Never happened. Nope." |
Assad said: "It is a report of political character when I was expecting rather a report of a technical-criminal nature."
| "Really. I was looking forward to finding out who dunnit!" |
"Right until the end Syria had excellent relations with Mr. Hariri. We had worked with him since the 1990s," Assad told Austrian weekly News. The UN report said Syria bore "primary responsibility" for the political tension that preceded the assassination and accused Assad of warning Hariri that he "would rather break Lebanon over the heads of Hariri and the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt than see his word in Lebanon broken." In a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa demanded the deletion of Assad's alleged threat to Hariri from the report. Sharaa said that the claim of an "alleged improper dialogue" between Assad and Hariri was "very strange" and should be removed. Sharaa added: "This reference will never be accepted because it is untrue and lacks any material evidence. It should be removed to help preserve the credibility of the United Nations." |