 U.N. investigators want to question Syria's president and foreign minister about the assassination of a former Lebanese leader and have made a request to that effect, a spokeswoman for the probe said Monday.
| Let's make sure we have a Predator in the air that day ... |
Nasra Hassan, who speaks for a U.N. commission heading the inquiry, also said investigators want to interview former Syrian Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam "as soon as possible."
| Before he's bumped off, y'mean? |
Khaddam alleged in a television interview broadcast Friday from Paris that the Syrian president had threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri several months before Hariri was assassinated in a Feb. 14 truck bombing. "The U.N. commission has already sent a request to interview Syrian President Bashar Assad and Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa, among others," Hassan told The Associated Press. "The commission is waiting for a response from the Syrians," she said. She refused to say when the request was made. There was no immediate Syrian government comment on the request, the first time the probe has touched directly on the president.
| They're gonna wait awhile for that response, and when it comes it's going to be so stunted they may not even recognize it. |
The commission has said several people whom Hariri spoke to after he met Assad in August 2004 said he told them the Syrian leader had threatened him over his opposition to extending the term of Lebanon's pro-Syrian president. Syrian officials, including Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa, have denied any threat was made.
But after Khaddam's interview, Syria's ruling Baath Party stripped him of membership and joined parliament in demanding his trial on a charge of high treason, the official news agency SANA reported Sunday. While Khaddam, who is in France, said Friday that he planned to return to Syria with his family to write a book, it was unclear if he would go back facing a treason charge. Conviction would bring the death penalty.
| Might be a good idea to hold off until afteer 9-11-06. |
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