New evidence implicates Syria in Hariri death - UN (Reuters) Updated: 2005-12-13 08:30
A U.N. inquiry on Monday reported it had fresh evidence to reinforce earlier
findings of Syrian involvement in the murder of former Lebanese prime minister
Rafik Hariri and said Damascus had hindered the probe.
The report presented to the U.N. Security Council by German Prosecutor Detlev
Mehlis also said that Syria had burned some papers relating to Lebanon and
pressured one witness to recant his testimony.
It said there were 19 suspects, whom it did not name, including five
witnesses questioned by U.N. investigators in Vienna this month.
The Security Council has demanded that Syria cooperate fully with the
investigation or face "further action" which could lead to sanctions. It will
hear from Mehlis on Tuesday.
"That is not cooperation," the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, told
reporters, after reading sections of the report. "That is obstruction of justice
by the government of Syria." He said no decision had been made on further action
in the council.
A Lebanese supporter of slain anti-Syrian
journalist and lawmaker Gibran Tueni holds a poster of Tueni and a candle,
in down town Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Dec. 12, 2005.
[AP] | Hours before the report was delivered, a
prominent lawmaker and fierce critic of Syria, Gebran Tueni, was killed in a car
bomb in Beirut, along with his driver and bodyguard.
A report by Mehlis in October implicated top Syrian security officials and
their Lebanese allies in the death of Hariri and 22 others in a truck bombing on
February 14 in Beirut.
"In the interval since the presentation of that report, the investigation has
continued to develop multiple lines of inquiry which, if anything, reinforce
those conclusions," Mehlis said on Monday.
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