Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Main suspect: Assad's brother-in-law

from Ynetnews (10.18.05, 20:09)...

According to German Magazine Stern, five top Syrian officials questioned by U.N. investigator 'not as witnesses, but as suspects'
Ynet and news agencies

A U.N. investigator has named the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar Assad as a suspect in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a German report said on Tuesday.

Stern Magazine, in extracts from an article due to appear on Thursday, named Syrian military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat as a suspect in the probe led by chief United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis. Shawkat is widely seen as the second most powerful man in Syria after Assad.

Mehlis, a German prosecutor, had questioned Shawkat "not as a witness, but as a suspect”, said Stern, without giving the source of its information. Mehlis is due to present his report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday on the February 14 killings of Hariri and 20 others in a truck bomb blast in Beirut. ... for him to point the finger at a member of Assad’s inner circle would be political dynamite...

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