The Palestinian factions slammed the section in the report of the UN investigator Detlev Mehlis, which accuses a Palestinian group of being involved in the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri last February.
The factions said, the report clearly accuses the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, of being directly involved in the assassination.
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Ahmed Jibril, leader of the front, whose headquarter is in Damascus rejected the accusations saying that Mehlis should be brought to justice over this accusation.
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The factions questioned the timing of such accusation relating it to the pressure practiced on Syria to stop its support to the Palestinian factions.
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They accused the U.S. administration of using the report to distract peoples attention from what is happening in Iraq.
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The U.S. threatened to impose sanctions against Syria if it does not cooperate with the investigators.
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The report accuses some Syrian and Lebanese officials of being involved with the assassination.
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A top legal adviser to the Syrian government signalled on Wednesday that his nation would cooperate with an investigation into the assassination of Hariri, though he harshly criticized Mehlis for bringing Syria to the brink of international sanctions.
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Riad Daoudi suggested, however, that it was unlikely investigators would be permitted to question Syrian President Bashar Assad or that the country’s top intelligence officials would be held in custody as demanded in a proposed US-backed resolution expected to be voted on by the UN Security Council next week.
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Assad said those who are involved in the assassination are criminals and should be brought to justice.
