 Syria's Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan has committed suicide, the official news agency in Damascus says.
| Did he fall? Or was he pushed? |
| One shot in the back of the head or two? |
| State media reports he ate his gun: "There was blood on his face the initial indications are that he put the gun in his mouth and shot himself," a political source said, adding the incident took place at around 11 a.m. |
| Colonel Mustard had no comment. |
He was reportedly questioned by a UN investigator last month over the murder of ex-Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri. For many years Kanaan was Syria's powerful intelligence chief in Lebanon, which was dominated by Syria until its military withdrawal earlier this year. He returned to Damascus in 2002 as political intelligence chief and joined the cabinet in 2004. "Interior Minister Brig Gen Ghazi Kanaan committed suicide in his office before noon," the Syrian Arab News Agency (Sana) reported.
| I've been expecting this. I just didn't know who was going to be the goat. |
The authorities are carrying out the "necessary investigation" into the incident, Sana said. Hours before his death, Kanaan contacted Voice of Lebanon radio station and gave what he called his "final statement". He asked for his comments to be passed to other broadcast media. "I want to make clear that our relation with our brothers in Lebanon was based on love and mutual respect... | we only control and assasinate those we love |
We have served Lebanon's interest with honour and honesty," he said. The UN report on Hariri's assassination is expected to be published before the end of October. Correspondents say it is likely to implicate Syria's intelligence regime and its allies in Lebanon in the bombing, that killed 20 people in central Beirut in February.
| That'd be Ghazi, alright. Though, truth to tell, I thought it'd be one of his deputies nobody's ever heard of. Then he'd have been mildly criticized for not maintaining tighter control. |
| Big trouble needs a big scapegoat |
Damascus has denied any involvement in the Hariri bombing, but it immediately came under heavy international pressure to relinquish its political and military control on Lebanon.
| They can deny all they want, but the corpse says they dunnit... |
The UN investigator, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, questioned seven senior Syrian officials in Damascus during a visit at the end of September, Lebanese media reported.
| I wonder how many others of the seven are looking nervously over their shoulders about now? |
Between the 1980s and his departure, Kanaan was Syria's top official in Beirut, whom Lebanese leaders had to report to directly on political and security issues, correspondents say. The United States froze his assets there in July saying he had aided terrorism in Lebanon.
| Let's see if this 'suicide' - whether unilateral or assisted - derails the push to hold Assad accountable. |
| My guess is that it will, in the short run. But they've been kicked out of Leb on Bashir's watch, and now one of his inner circle's had to take one for the team. I'm guessing Ghazali's on really thin ice, but that Bashir's little brother Maher won't be implicated. And I'll still stand by my ash heap of history by 9-11-2006 prediction. |
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