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A UN report cited “converging evidence” pointing at involvement by both Syrian and Lebanese senior security officials in the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.

Bloomberg - Unnamed Syrian:

An unnamed Syrian living in Lebanon “who claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, has stated that approximately two weeks after the adoption of Security Council resolution 1559, senior Lebanese and Syrian officials decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri,” the report said.

The report said the source “claimed that a senior Lebanese security official went several times to Syria to plan the crime, meeting once at the Meridian Hotel in Damascus and several times at the presidential place and the office of a senior Syrian security official.”

It said the last meeting was held in the house of the same senior Syrian security official approximately seven to 10 days before the assassination.

The van that carried the bomb entered Lebanon from Syria on Jan. 21 and was driven by a Syrian army colonel, the report said, citing the unnamed witness.

The Syrian source said that he was in Beirut, near the scene of the bombing, 15 minutes before the explosion. “He received a telephone call from one of the senior Syrian officers, who asked he witness where he was,” the report said. “When he answered, he got the advice to leave the area immediately.”

AFP - Evidence of Syrian involvement in Hariri murder:

“There is converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act,” it noted. “The likely motive of the assassination was political.”

“However, since the crime was not the work of individuals but rather of a sophisticated group, it very much seems that fraud, corruption and money-laundering could also have been motives for individuals to participate in the operation,” the report added.

Al Jazeera - Al-Hariri murder probe implicates Syria:

The report said that it was well known that Syrian military intelligence had a pervasive presence in Lebanon at least until the withdrawal of Syrian forces in line with UN Security Council resolution 1559.

“Given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem, it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge,” the report said.

“While the Syrian authorities, after initial hesitation, have cooperated to a limited degree�several interviewees tried to mislead the investigation,” the commission said in its report.

“The letter addressed to the Commission by the Foreign Minister of the Syrian Arab Republic proved to contain false information,” it said.

Haaretz - U.S. to call for sanctions against Syria over results of probe:

The United States is expected to push for Security Council sanctions against Syria in response to the findings of a United Nations investigation into Hariri’s murder.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in close contact with her French and Russian counterparts in an effort to formulate a joint response to the report, which links the Syrian government to the assassination. But while Paris is working closely with the U.S. on this issue, Moscow has hinted that it will oppose harsh measures against Syria.

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