KUALA LUMPUR - The Syrian government has gathered a team of lawyers to assess UN reports on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, a prominent Malaysian lawyer said Friday.

Shafee Abdullah said he was asked by Syria to head the legal team to make an independent assessment on United Nations reports into the murder, which include assessments implicating Syrian officials.

"I was hired about a year ago. I am heading a team of lawyers. My work is to do analysis and give opinion on the UN reports," Shafee told AFP.

Hariri, who had tense relations with neighbouring Syria, was killed in a massive bomb blast that also killed 22 others in Beirut in February 2005.

Syria was widely suspected of links to the assassination and forced to end 22 years of military domination in Lebanon following domestic and international protests.

UN investigators are currently trying to determine whether he was killed by a single group or parties with different motives, but two reports last year by then chief investigator Detlev Mehlis implicated senior Syrian officials.

The Syrian government, which for decades was the power broker to its smaller neighbour, has strongly denied any connection with the slaying of Hariri.

Shafee said he had already submitted his first report to Damascus and was working on a second.

He declined to elaborate on his investigations except to say "for now, there is no evidence against Syria as a country or a government" in Hariri's murder.

The New Straits Times Friday said Shafee's first report criticised Mehlis' findings and said the United States and Israel stood to gain if Syria was blamed for Hariri's murder.

It also said Hariri's death could not be in Syria's interest, as it was the most obvious way for it to lose influence in Lebanon, the newspaper said.

The daily cited diplomatic sources as saying Shafee's team had visited Damascus and Lebanon on several occasions and had met top Syrian officials.

Shafee would not name the other lawyers, but the newspaper said the team also comprised a Queen's Counsel, a prominent London solicitor, a senior lawyer from India and a former senior Scotland Yard police officer.

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