Syrian President Bashar al-Assad personally threatened Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri before he was killed in a bomb attack in February 2005, Hariri's son, Saad, claimed in an interview published in Russia. "There were threats," said Saad Hariri, currently Lebanon's parliamentary leader. His father "told me that he had been threatened", his son is quoted as saying in an article published Monday in the Russian daily Vremia Novostei. Asked whether he knew if Bashar al-Assad had "personally threatened" his father, Saad Hariri said "Yes".Former Syrian vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam, who is now living in exile in France, has claimed that Assad personally ordered the assassination of the elder Hariri, allegations dismissed by Damascus as unfounded.Assad has denied all accusations that he or his government were involved in Harari's death, which prompted a UN investigation that is still underway. Saad Hariri met Friday with Vladimir Putin at the Russian President's Black Sea villa in Sotchi.