VIENNA - The questioning of top Syrian intelligence officials by UN investigators over the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri has been adjourned, an official source in Vienna said Tuesday.

"Questioning will resume on Wednesday" at the United Nations Office in Vienna, said an official source who refused to be named.

The grilling of five top Syrian intelligence officials began Monday in the Austrian capital in the utmost secrecy.

To avoid photographers, the Syrian witnesses were brought in through a concealed entrance while the Austrian interior minister in charge of the Syrians' security said "it wasn't in the country's best interest to discuss the matter".

The UN commission investigating Hariri's murder questioned Syria's former intelligence chief in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazaleh, and his deputy Jameh Jameh, the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat reported Tuesday.

The head of the Syrian intelligence service's Palestinian affairs department, Abdelkarim Abbas, communications chief, Zaher Yussef, and retired colonel, Samih al-Kashaani, another of Ghazaleh's deputies, are expected to testify on Wednesday, the paper quoted unnamed sources as saying.

Asked about the nature of the hearings, the UN and the Syrian and Lebanese embassies to Austria refused to comment.

But according to Al-Hayat, the hearings related to "the nature of the duties of the Syrian officials' work" in Lebanon before Hariri's murder in Beirut on 14 February 2005, and to "recorded statements of phone conversations that took place between (Ghazaleh) and Lebanese political figures."

According to Lebanese sources close to the inquiry and quoted Tuesday in the Beirut daily L'Orient-Le Jour, the hearings could lead to charges despite a safe-conduct granted to the Syrian witnesses by the UN during their stay in Vienna.

In that event, a request would be made to the Syrian authorities to deliver the accused to the Mehlis commission, the French-language daily reported. If they refuse, the UN would seize the dossier and ask for an international tribunal to try those charged with Hariri's death.

A legal team including a legal adviser from the Syrian foreign ministry, Riad Daudi, assists the five Syrian witnesses during their questioning, Lebanese newspapers including Al-Mustaqbal reported Monday.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Monday in an interview with France 3 television: "There is no proof that Syria was involved" in Hariri's murder. He also asked the Mehlis commission "to correct the mistakes it made earlier in order to form a report that is fair and objective".

In an interim report to the UN Security Council on 20 October, Mehlis accused Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials of involvement in Hariri's death.

Mehlis is expected to submit his final report on 15 December but the mandate for his commission could be extended beyond that date.

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