Syria, Lebanon: UN Findings False

(CBS/AP)  Syria on Friday rejected U.N. findings that linked Damascus to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri as false, unprofessional and politicized.

Lebanon's president, vowing not to leave office, denied a U.N. claim he received a phone call minutes before the killing.

"I think the report is far from professional and will not lead us to the truth," Mehdi Dakhlallah, the Syrian information minister, said in an interview on Al-Jazeera television from the Syrian capital.

He said the report, about which he had seen media reports but did not have an official text, was "100 per cent politicized" and "contained false accusations."

The report, submitted to the U.N. Security Council late Thursday, implicated top Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials in the Feb. 14 assassination of Hariri in massive bombing in Beirut that also killed 20 others.

It also raised questions about Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, who it said received a phone call minutes before the blast from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group, who also called one of the four Lebanese generals, Raymond Azar, who have been arrested in the probe.

Lahoud's office "categorically denies" the media reports about Lahoud receiving a phone call, saying "there is no truth to it."

The statement said the accusations are part of continued campaigns against the president and the office "and the national responsibilities he shoulders and will continue to do so at this delicate stage in Lebanon's history."

Since the arrest of four Lebanese generals in August as suspects, anti-Syrian groups have focused on Lahoud, demanding his resignation. Lahoud has refused to step down, saying his hands are clean and that he supports punishing those found guilty of killing Hariri.

The decision to assassinate Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services," the report said.

"While the report did not contain 'smoking gun' evidence about who was directly involved, the lengthy chronology of the events surrounding the assassination concludes that Syrian and Lebanese officials were involved and adds fuel to the stated interest by several Security Council nations to take stronger action at the U.N. against Syria," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.

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