Kuwait: A Syrian agent who allegedly misled a UN probe into the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri has resurfaced in Europe after imprisonment in the Gulf, a Kuwaiti daily reported on Monday.
Mohammad Zuhair Al Siddiq was to be deported after his jail time in the UAE, and Syria had requested the return of the former intelligence officer.
In a statement to Kuwait's Al Seyassah newspaper, Siddiq did not name the European country he is living in or how he got there.
He again blamed Syrian and Lebanese leaders for the 2005 car bomb assassination, but added that Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group also was involved.
Siddiq was last seen in October at the state security court in Abu Dhabi, where he was given a six-month jail term for entering the UAE on a false Czech passport.
Since he had been apprehended earlier, his jail term was to end in April after which he was to be deported, presumably to Syria.
In his newspaper statement, he reiterated that he was unaware the passport had been fake, claiming he got it from the French intelligence service.
In initial reports of the UN inquiry commission, Siddiq had claimed that Lebanon's former pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad gave the order to kill Hariri, who opposed Damascus's grip over Lebanon.
However, Siddiq later recanted, and Lebanese and Syrian judicial authorities accused him of lying.
In May, the prosecutor at the tribunal charged with bringing Hariri's killers to justice said Siddiq was no longer a credible witness and was of no interest to the inquiry.
