Rice demands accountability for Hariri death

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded accountability after a UN report said high-ranking Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies were involved in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

"Accountability is going to be very important for the international community," Rice told reporters as she flew with Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for a tour of Alabama.

"We cannot have the specter of one state's apparatus having participated or having been involved in the assassination of the former prime minister ... in another state."

Rice did not specify what action the United States wanted the United Nations Security Council to take against Syria. But her remarks intensified international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, whose brother-in-law is suspected of being involved in the plot.

The UN inquiry into the Feb 14 killing, led by veteran German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, has established "that many leads point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination."

Syria's ambassador to the United States dismissed the investigation as "gossip."

But Rice said the findings were clear.

"Even an initial reading of the report is deeply troubling," she said. "You have clearly a case in which there is an implication that Syrian officials were involved in the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri. You also have a clear indication that the Syrian government has not been cooperating."

"These are charges that will lead the international community to have to seriously consider how it demand accountability," she added.

The top US diplomat said she was hammering out with her counterparts from countries on the UN Security Council, including Straw, on how to respond to the report, which has been submitted to the 15-nation council.

- REUTERS