Syria’s man in Lebanon ‘ commits suicide’

Death comes ahead of UN report on assassination of Rafik Hariri

JERUSALEM • Syria’s powerful Interior Minister, Ghazi Kanaan, for years the regime’s viceroy in Lebanon, was reported to have “committed suicide” in his office yesterday.

Mr. Kanaan was said to have shot himself in the head two weeks ahead of the publication of a United Nations investigation into the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.

Mr. Kanaan’s death was announced in Damascus after he gave an interview to a Lebanese radio station in which he said: “I think this is the last statement I might give.” He then urged the radio station to pass his remarks on to other media outlets.

Syrian authorities, already under pressure from the United States over Iraq, have grown increasingly nervous about Lebanese and international charges that Syria was linked to Mr. Hariri’s death.

Mr. Kanaan’s death could therefore be convenient for Damascus as it may allow the government to turn him into a scapegoat for any hostile findings in the UN report.

Within hours, CNN began airing excerpts of an interview with Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad, apparently recorded before Mr. Kanaan’s death, in which Mr. Assad vowed that any Syrian implicated in the Hariri murder would be treated as a traitor and be put on trial either abroad or in Syria.

Although other causes of death are yet to be ruled out pending an official inquiry, the death of the 63-year-old brigadier came just three weeks after he was questioned by UN investigators probing the Valentine’s Day car bomb that killed Mr. Hariri, who had dared to stand up to Damascus.

Four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals have been arrested and charged in Mr. Hariri’s assassination. Syria denies involvement in the bombing, although the UN inquiry’s report, due to be delivered to the Security Council this month, is expected to blame Damascus.

With the United States expected to impose further sanctions on Syria, Mr. Assad embarked on a campaign to defend himself.

Asked by CNN if he had ordered Mr. Hariri’s murder, he replied: “This is against our principle and my principle. And I would never do such a thing in my life. What do we achieve? What do we achieve? I think what happened targeted Syria.”

Asked if Syrian officials might have ordered the killing without his knowledge, he said: “I don’t think so. As I said, if that happened, this is treason.”

From 1982 until 2002, Mr. Kanaan ran Syria’s military intelligence operations in Lebanon and eventually became Damascus’s de facto viceroy.

During the latter stages of Lebanon’s civil war, he used violence, threats and money to play the various religious and social factions against each other.

Others who defied him were abducted and imprisoned by his troops. By the early 1990s his control of Lebanon was absolute. The United States has accused him of smuggling illegal weapons, including rockets, to Hezbollah extremists in southern Lebanon.

U.S. President George W. Bush declined to comment on Mr. Kanaan’s death but he repeated U. S. warnings to Syria that it should do more to stop foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq and said Syria was still far too involved in Lebanon.