UN investigators probing the murder of Lebanon's former billionaire premier Rafiq Hariri have interrogated pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, heightening pressure on the embattled regime in Damascus.
"President Emile Lahoud met with two members of the international fact-finding panel at 5:00pm [on Friday] ... and gave them true and precise information concerning telephone calls received by the president's office before the hideous crime," a statement from Lahoud's office said.
The meeting was Lahoud's first with the team of UN investigators led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.
Hariri's killing in a Beirut bomb blast on Feb. 14 sparked an international outcry and eventually led Syria to withdraw its troops from neighboring Lebanon after a 29-year military presence.
Several close Lahoud aides have been arrested on charges including pre-meditated murder, and were named in a report issued by the UN team last month that implicated high-level Syrian and Lebanese officials in the killing.
The interrogation of Lahoud came as US President George W. Bush called on Syria on Friday to stop trying to "intimidate and destabilize" Lebanon and to cooperate fully with the UN probe.
Syria must "stop exporting violence and start importing democracy," Bush said.
On Thursday, the US accused Syria of stonewalling the UN probe into Hariri's murder and condemned as "appalling" a speech by President Bashar al-Assad.
Assad, in a combative hour-long speech to the nation in Damascus, lashed out at the Lebanese government and accused its prime minister of kowtowing to Western countries.
The UN report triggered further opposition calls for Lahoud to step down, but he refused to resign.
Lahoud's mandate was controversially extended by three years in September last year under pressure from Syria, which dominated Lebanese military and political affairs since the Lebanese civil war but pulled out its last troops in April.
Newspapers in Lebanon said Lahoud was interrogated as a witness for six hours.
His spokesman Rafic Shalala said that the "meeting between Mr Lahoud and the committee was held at the request of the president who wants to clarify the telephone calls".
The UN team has established that the brother of a key suspect called Lahoud's telephone number minutes before the explosion that killed Hariri.
The suspect has been identified as Ahmad Abdel-Al, a prominent member of Al-Ahbash, a Lebanese charity with strong ties with Syria and the Lebanese presidency.
Lahoud's office said a call was registered on one of the president's telephones but that it was not Lahoud himself who took the call.
Lebanese authorities have put Abdel-Al and his brother Mahmud under investigation in the ongoing UN-sponsored inquiry.
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