United Nations panel to investigate latest assassination in Lebanon

Nov 23, 2006, 7:59 GMT

New York - The UN Security Council agreed that the latest killing of an anti-Syrian politician in Lebanon, industry minister Pierre Gemayel, should be investigated by a UN commission looking into the 2005 bombing death of prime minister Rafik Hariri.

The vote taken late Wednesday in New York, one day after Gemayel was gunned down in Beirut, was unanimous, said Peruvian Ambassador Jorge Voto-Bernales, who now holds the 15-nation council's rotating presidency.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said earlier that he was 'extremely worried' about developments in Lebanon.

'The situation is delicate, very fragile, and we should all do whatever we can to support the Lebanese people and the government and encourage them to stand united,' Annan said before meeting with Lebanese Culture Minister Tarek Mitri in New York.

Annan added that he hoped the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora would soon take the next step toward the establishment of a Hariri tribunal, a panel of international and Lebanese judges that is to try those implicated in Hariri's assassination and 14 other political killings in Lebanon.

The Security Council had approved the tribunal on the same day that Gemayel, 34, a Maronite Christian and member of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, was shot to death in a daylight attack while driving in a Christian neighbourhood.

The vote was taken after the Lebanese government had referred the Hariri inquiry to the UN tribunal, resulting in the resignations of six pro-Syrian ministers.

Hariri was killed along with 22 other people in a bombing in February 2005 in Beirut. Syria's critics in Lebanon have charged that Syria, which at that time was the powerbroker in Lebanon, was behind Hariri's as well as Gemayel's assassinations. Syria has denied the accusations.

While outrage over Hariri's killing led Syria to withdraw its troops from its neighbouring country, ending a 29-year military presence there, it also set off a series of sectarian killings in Lebanon that have targeted other anti-Syrian figures.

The initial conclusions of the UN investigative panel, working since mid-2005, have pointed to Syrian involvement in the Hariri's assassination.