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Syria Studying Hariri Probe UN Request

Syria is considering a U.N. request to question six Syrian officials in its investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a foreign ministry official said Monday. The official declined to disclose the identities of the six or say whether the United Nations wanted to question them in Syria or outside the country.

A Lebanese official close to the U.N. commission told reporters on Saturday that the investigators want to see General Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar Assad, among others. In an interim report to the U.N. Security Council last month, chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis named Shawkat and the president`s younger brother, Maher Assad. Shawkat became Syria`s chief of intelligence the day after the Hariri bombing took place.

A senior U.S. official reiterated Monday that Syria should cooperate with the investigation. The death of Rafik Hariri, who was killed with 20 other people by a massive truck bomb in Beirut on February 14 of this year, provoked mass demonstrations against Syria because many Lebanses believed then and do now that Syria was involved in the assassination, a charge Syria has repeatedly denied. Those demonstrations along with international pressure forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, which Syria did in April, ending 29 years of military presence in its western neighbor.