Syria seeks deal in UN Hariri murder inquiry

Syria is trying to negotiate a deal to prevent punitive action by the United Nations if, as is widely expected, the Damascus government is linked to the February 14 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, according to US and European officials.

Over the past month, the government of President Bashar Al Assad has been inquiring about the potential for a deal, roughly equivalent to what Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi did to end tough international sanctions imposed for his country's role in the 1988 midair bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the officials said.

Gaddafi eventually agreed to hand over two intelligence officials linked to the bombing for an international trial, a move that began Libya's political rehabilitation.

But the United States, France and UN officials have all recently signalled to Syria that they will not compromise on the completion of a full investigation into the slaying of Lebanese reformer Rafik Hariri or subsequent legal steps, wherever the probe leads, the officials said.

The UN investigation moved this week to Syria, where Detlev Mehlis, the chief investigator, interviewed the two most recent Syrian intelligence chiefs in Lebanon and their aides in the probe into the massive bombing that killed Hariri and 19 others as they drove through Beirut, the capital.

Since the arrest last month of four top Lebanese security officials with close ties to Damascus, Syria has been "running scared," said a US official familiar with the overtures.

Mehlis, who has taken the investigation far deeper, far faster than initially anticipated, "is coming up with stuff that is making people in Damascus nervous," the official said.

Overtures from Damascus have included vague suggestions of a willingness to hand over certain unnamed security individuals in exchange for guarantees that any subsequent trial would not try to point fingers any higher in Syria, according to several Western officials familiar with Syria's moves.

Damascus is "flailing around looking for something,'' said a second senior US official. Like others, the official would discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity involved.

"As to whether this is for them to try to slip out from any potential finding or a good faith effort or an act of desperation, I don't know. But it's a dead end."