Syria asks for a UN investigation protocol

Syria has asked Detlev Mehlis, who leads the UN investigation to the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, to confine to questioning Syrian suspects to inside Syria territories and in the presence of their lawyers.

This request came in the course of the draft cooperation agreement proposed by Damascus stating that the UN investigator should brief the Syrian investigators on the results that he aims to conclude. The draft cooperation also states that disputes between the Syrians and the UN investigation team should be solved via negotiations.

Both Mehlis and members of the UN Security Council considered that such restrictions will not be accepted.

The Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Sharaa asked the UN secretary general Kofi Annan to mediate with Mehlis to help in the negotiations with Damascus for establishing a "cooperation protocol" which would govern the investigation.