An increasingly isolated Syria yesterday angrily rejected as false, unprofessional and politicized the explosive UN report that accused Damascus of approving the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
The document almost certainly put Syria on a collision course with the UN Security Council, where the US, Britain and France have been laying the groundwork for a number of crippling economic sanctions against the regime of President Bashar Assad.
While the UN findings did not directly implicate the embattled Assad, the report cited a witness' account that Assef Shawkat, Assad's brother-in-law and the Syrian military intelligence chief, forced a man to tape a claim of responsibility for Hariri's killing 15 days before it occurred.
Hariri had quarreled with the country's Syrian overlords and eventually resigned last October, a month after Syria imposed a change in Lebanon's laws to extend the term of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.
PHONE CALL
The pro-Syrian Lahoud, meanwhile, denied a UN claim that he was one of two key officials who received a phone call minutes before the killing.
Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhlallah said the report was "a political statement directed against Syria."
The report was based on witnesses "who are well known for their anti-Syria stands," Dakhlallah's office said, charging that the UN assessment lacked hard evidence and was based mainly on "gossip."
George Jabbour, a Syrian legislator, said the report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis was "extremely political" and harsh on Syria, while Elias Murad, the editor-in-chief of the ruling party's al-Baath newspaper, said it was a "political" rather than judicial report.
But Michel Kilo, a Syrian writer and political analyst who frequently criticizes the Syrian government, called on the Syrian government to produce facts to counter evidence contained in the report.
While the report contained some gaps, "I am convinced that it was professional," Kilo said.
IMPLICATED
The report of the UN probe, submitted to the Security Council late on Thursday by the chief investigator, implicated top Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials in the Feb. 14 assassination of Hariri in a massive bombing in Beirut that also killed 20 others.
Hariri's death sparked demonstrations against Syria and intensified the international pressure on Damascus to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, which it eventually did.
The probe's report comes at a time of increased US pressure against Syria to stop interfering in Lebanon, to shut its border to anti-US insurgents that are crossing into Iraq and to desist in support for Palestinian militant groups.
Syria has denied all of the accusations.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who is backed by the Hariri family and the anti-Syrian majority in parliament, declined immediate comment on the report, saying he wanted to read it before convening Cabinet to discuss it.
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