UN team probes pro-Syria suspects in Hariri death

BEIRUT - United Nations investigators have questioned five senior pro-Syrian figures, including a top aide to Lebanon's president, as suspects in the February killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Lebanese police and UN investigators detained three former security chiefs in dawn raids, the first time they have implicated allies of Syria in the killing that shook Lebanon and hastened the departure of Syrian troops after three decades.

"The detentions in Beirut are the beginning of justice," Hariri's son, member of parliament Saad Hariri, told Arab television news channel Al Arabiya from Paris. "This is a start ... There will be more detentions."

A fourth man named as a suspect, Republican Guard commander Bigadier General Mustafa Hamdan, went to the headquarters of the United Nations investigating team himself.

A close aide of pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud, he was the only pro-Syrian security official to keep his job after parliamentary elections that ended in June ushered in an anti-Syrian majority.

The fifth suspect, former member of parliament Nassir Qandil, returned from Syria to face the investigators, brought in by the Security Council after a UN fact-finding mission found Lebanon incapable of carrying out a credible inquiry.

"The UN investigators searched the homes of the former security chiefs and the head of the Republican Guard before bringing them in as suspects for questioning...," the UN said in a statement.

Major General Jamil al-Sayyed, former head of General Security, Major General Ali Hajj, ex-chief of police, and Brigadier General Raymond Azar, former military intelligence chief, were detained at the UN's request.

- REUTERS