Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, has denied accusations by his former vice- president that he threatened Rafiq al-Hariri before the former Lebanese prime minister was killed. In comments made to Egypt's El Osboa newspaper, al-Assad accused the Paris-based Abdel Halim Khaddam of scheming against Syria before resigning in June and insisted the allegations levelled by him was simply not true. "This incident did not happen. The aim of spreading these allegations is to link the threat to the assassination. The game is over," al-Assad said, responding for the first time to Khaddam's accusations."I wish to say here that no one joined us in the last meeting between me and Hariri, so where did these allegations come from," he said in the interview. Al-Assad also hinted that as president of Syria, he would be immune from questioning by a team investigating al-Hariri's February assassination.