DUBAI (Agencies)
A key Syrian witness in the probe into former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri's murder told a Kuwaiti newspaper that he is in hiding in Europe, as Syria accused the U.S. of using the tribunal as pressure tool on Damascus.
"I am living in a secret hideout, close to France and the international tribunal, and I am well," Mohammed Zuheir al-Saddiq told Al-Seyassah by telephone on Thursday, after he left his Paris home and disappeared.
Saddiq said he went into hiding to protect his life, adding that he sent several letters to the international tribunal and the Lebanese judiciary informing them that he had faced three assassination attempts.
He said the tribune failed to provide him with adequate protection but that he would go to the tribunal as soon as it opened.
Saddiq, a former Syrian intelligence official, was detained in October 2005 in a Paris suburb in connection with the February 2005 assassination of Hariri. France refused to extradite him to Lebanon as he could have faced the death penalty if convicted.
Newspaper reports in 2006 quoted Saddiq as saying that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his then Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud ordered Hariri's killing in a massive Beirut car bombing.
Saddiq reiterated charges that four former senior Lebanese intelligence officers detained in Beirut and their "Syrian partners" were responsible for the assassination of Hariri.
"I insist that the four Lebanese officers and their Syrian partners have killed Hariri and I have the evidence for that and it will be submitted to the tribunal," he said. |
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No deal: Rice Meanwhile in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruled out any deal with Syria to keep Assad's regime or family from being implicated in Hariri's murder.
Senator Arlen Specter told Rice during a Senate committee's hearing that Jordan's King Abdullah II recently told him that Assad was concerned about the international tribunal that will try suspects in the assassination of Hariri.
Specter floated the idea of launching negotiations with Damascus to gain political progress in the region in exchange for reduced sentences in the case.
But Rice responded: "I don't think that it would be appropriate to suggest that we might be willing to limit the scope of this tribunal on the assassination of Rafiq Hariri ... because it might somehow implicate either the regime or the Assad family."
"I know that has been on their mind, but I think that would be a very bad step. I think it would be bad for Lebanon, and bad for international justice," she told the Senate Appropriations Committee. |
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Pressure tool: Syria Syria reacted on Thursday by accusing the U.S. of exploiting the tribunal as a tool to apply pressure on Damascus.
"The words of the U.S. secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice) before Congress jump ahead of the results of the international inquiry which is underway and has not yet finished," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
It said her remarks were "additional proof that the United States is using the tribunal as a means of political pressure on Syria."
A UN probe has implicated senior Syrian officials in the car bomb attack that killed Hariri, an opponent of Syria's influence on Lebanon, and 22 other people on February 14, 2005.
Syria, which for three decades was the power broker in its smaller neighbor, has vehemently denied any connection with Hariri's death. |
