Damascus - Syria's official newspapers maintained silence on Tuesday about the second report on the United Nations investigation into the assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik Hariri delivered Monday in New York, which accuses Damascus of ongoing failure to cooperate with the probe.
'The report (delivered Monday) has nothing new,' was the single- sentence reaction in Al-Thawra government newspaper in an article otherwise devoted to the assassination Monday of Lebanese lawmaker and journalist Jibran Tueni.
The report delivered to the U.N. Security Council by the German head of the investigating team, Detlev Mehlis, provided further evidence of Syria's involvement in the car bombing which killed Hariri and charged that some documentation had been burned and destroyed in Syria.
'The charge is still directed against Syria,' political analyst Ahmed Haj Ali told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, dismissing the charges as 'baseless and invalid' because numerous testimonies cited had 'already been dropped'.
'There were a lot of gaps in the report and it needs to be reviewed in order to reassess previous evidences,' he added, insisting Syria had so far cooperated fully with U.N. investigators.
In his report, Mehlis, who was expected to appear before the Security Council on Tuesday to discuss his finding, charged that Syria still has not cooperated fully with the U.N. investigation. The council has threatened sanctions if Syria does not comply.
Mehlis said some 19 Lebanese and Syrians have now been identified as suspects, apparently including five of six Syrian officials questioned in Vienna last week by U.N. investigators.
The burning of Syrian intelligence documents relating to Lebanon was reported by two Syrian officials questioned in Austria.
Mehlis called for the probe to be extended another six months after his departure at the end of this year and urged Syria to be 'more forthcoming' and provide 'full and unconditional cooperation' with the investigation.
The report came just hours after another car bomb killed four people in Beirut, including Jibran Tueni, a vanguard Lebanese Christian MP at the forefront of successful efforts to oust Syrian forces from Lebanon.
