DAMASCUS - Syria on Tuesday confirmed it had received a request from the UN probe into the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri to interview President Bashar al-Assad

"Yes, the request arrived on Sunday," an official said, requesting anonymity and without providing further details.
The request followed declarations by Syria's former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam that Assad had threatened Hariri a few months before his February murder in a Beirut bomb blast.

The UN probe into the murder, which has already implicated a number of Lebanese and Syrian officials, said Monday it had asked to interview Assad, Foreign Minister Faruq Shara and former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam.

But Ahmad Hajj Ali, an analyst and member of Syria's ruling Baath party said Assad could not be interviewed by the probe.

"That's impossible because it would be an attack on (Syrian) sovereignty," said Hajj Ali.

"Firstly because there is no judicial pretext permitting an interview between the president and the commission and also because it would lead to a politicization of the enquiry," he told AFP.

He said the UN request was a direct result of Khaddam's incendiary allegations on Friday.

Meanwhile, pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported that the probe's outgoing chief, German magistrate Detlev Mehlis, would hand over the reins of the enquiry to Belgian judge Serge Brammertz around January 10.

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