Syria role in Hariri plot overblown?

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Syria probably didn't play a direct role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, leaked cables suggest.

Beirut is bracing for indictments from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon possibly by the end of the year. Serge Brammertz, who led the U.N. International Independent Investigative Committee, is quoted as saying in leaked 2006 documents reviewed by Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper that it was unlikely Syria had a direct role in the slaying.

"Syria has five different state security apparatuses," he was quoted as saying. "I can't imagine that an order came down from the president and worked its way through all the security services and until they killed Hariri."

Damascus and Shiite resistance movement Hezbollah are thought to have played a role in the slaying.

The cables suggest, the Daily Star said, that Washington had satellite imagery of the site where Hariri was killed Feb. 14, 2005, and that FBI officials had reviewed DNA evidence from the scene.

Brammertz added that the investigation was hamstrung by bureaucracy and a general lack of support.

"Most of the delays appeared to be the result of a cumbersome U.N. bureaucracy, which seemed to affect everything from the UNIIIC's hiring procedures to housing issues and even its food supply," he was quoted as saying.