BEIRUT, Lebanon - A key Lebanese suspect in former premier Rafiq Hariri's killing was hospitalised Wednesday with heart problems, as the timing for the questioning of Syrian officials by a UN probe remained a mystery.

Medical and judicial sources said that General Raymond Azar, a former army intelligence chief, was being treated at the intensive care unit of a Beirut hospital.

The general was among four former security chiefs arrested in August for the February 14 assassination of Hariri in a huge Beirut bomb blast that also killed 20 other people.

Azar, who like the other suspects is close to Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, is suffering from an attack of angina, according to a medical source.

UN investigators probing the Hariri assassination have implicated security officials in post at the time in both Lebanon and Syria.

Meanwhile, a Syrian witness in the UN investigation who has retracted his testimony against top officials in Syria said Wednesday that he fears for his fiancee in Lebanon.

"Hussam Taher Hussam says his fiancee in Lebanon is in danger and being put under pressure and threatened to testify against his fiancee," his lawyer Omar Zohbi told a press conference, standing next to Hussam.

He said Hussam was demanding that the Lebanese government protect the woman, Tharwat al-Hujayri said.

Hussam is a former intelligence agent whom the UN investigation into Hariri's murder quoted seven times in its interim report which implicates Syria. He recanted his testimony on Sunday.

He said on Syrian state television that he had testified against the brother and brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad only under duress and had been offered "astronomic" bribes.

Lebanese police said that Hussam, a Syrian Kurd, was wanted for allegedly using forged papers before he fled to Damascus.

The UN probe headed by German magistrate Detlev Mehlis, facing a December 15 target date to complete its probe of the Hariri slaying, was originally expected to question five senior Syrian officials in Vienna on Tuesday.

United Nations, Austrian and Syrian officials in Vienna remained tight-lipped Wednesday about exactly when the questioning would take place of the officials, who have not been named.

"Syria wants total discretion on the date of departure of the Syrian witnesses," a foreign ministry source said in Damascus.

On Tuesday, Damascus reiterated that it had played no role in Hariri's murder and described Mehlis's report as "faulty" since it was based on Hussam's now retracted accusations.

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