Calls for UN Sanctions on Syria Over Hariri Killing

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Calls for UN sanctions on Syria over Hariri killing

By David Usborne in New York

Published: 20 October 2005


The United States and France are preparing new Security Council resolutions to accelerate the diplomatic isolation of Syria at the United Nations before the release ofthe report into the assassination of RafikHariri, a former prime minister of neighbouring Lebanon.

The report, which will be submitted to Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, tomorrow, is expected to accuse Syria of complicity in the bomb attack in Beirut that killed Mr Hariri and 20 other people on 14 February. It is also expected to charge senior Lebanese and Syria officials with murder.

In anticipation of the document, prepared by Detlev Mehlis, the UN's chief investigator into the affair, Syria's President, Bashar Assad, publicly denied guilt. "We are 100 per cent innocent," he told the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit.

Syria will become the main focus of Security Council debate next week as members get a first glimpse of the Mehlis report and a second UN report investigating whether Damascus has complied with a UN resolution of last year ordering it to withdraw from Lebanon and stop meddling in its affairs.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article320795.ece