DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syrian officials demanded that a UN report implicating them over the February murder of five-time Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri be revised after state television broadcast the apparent recanting of a witness.
Ibrahim Darraji, who heads Syria's own separate investigation into the killing, said the new testimony from Kurdish former intelligence agent Hassam Taher Hassam spelled the collapse of last month's findings by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis which prompted a Security Council resolution against Damascus.
His attack on the commission came just a day before Mehlis's team was due to hold its first interviews with senior Syrian officials at UN offices in Vienna ending a prolonged wrangle over the venue for the long-awaited interrogations.
"From a legal point of view, the Mehlis report has collapsed," Darraji told reporters at a joint news conference with the purported witness in Damascus.
"It was based on the testimony of two key witnesses -- Mohammed Zuheir as-Sadiq who is now jailed in France and Mr Hassam," he said, standing alongside Hassam.
"The ball is now in the Mehlis commission's court -- they based their findings on the statements of one person and he has now set the record straight."
In the lengthy interview broadcast Sunday evening, Hassam told state television that he had testified against the brother and brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad only under duress.
"Maher al-Assad and Assaf Shawkat were the main officials in their sights .. they asked me to speak out against them and I said that they were the ones who ordered the murder," he said.
He said he regretted making what he described as the "entirely false" statements that he had given.
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