Syria will let UN investigators, trying to identify the killers of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, question its officials in Damascus on their own, the Syrian ambassador to London has said. Chief United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis has complained that Syrian security figures interviewed in Damascus last month appeared to give only prepared responses. The Syrians had insisted that other officials attend the interviews. "There shouldn't be a problem to meet with them as witnesses any time," the ambassador, Sami Khiyami, told Reuters on Friday. "Mehlis can meet them completely alone, even choose a place in Damascus with a UN flag," he said, adding that the investigators would be free to produce their witnesses at the interviews, while keeping their identities secret if necessary.
| "But they ain't goin' to Beirut," he added. "Fuggeddaboudit." |