Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri said he was wrong to accuse Syria of killing his father Rafiq Al-Hariri in 2005 and said the charge against Damascus had been politically motivated. “At some point, we made a mistake,” Saad told Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat. “At one stage, we accused Syria of assassinating the martyred premier. “That was a political accusation, and that political accusation is over,” he said. “There is a (UN) court that is doing its job, and we for our part must reassess what happened,” he said. “The tribunal is completely independent of our political accusations, which were made prematurely,” Saad added. “The tribunal only takes into consideration evidence.” Saad's comments to Asharq al-Awsat newspaper were the clearest repudiation to date of his earlier accusation that Syria was behind the Beirut bombing which killed his father and 22 others five years ago. Syria had repeatedly denied the charge. “We assessed the mistakes that we made with Syria, that harmed the Syrian people and relations between the two countries,” Saad told the newspaper. The assassination of Rafiq Al-Hariri provoked a domestic and international outcry which forced Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to withdraw troops from Lebanon, ending nearly three decades of military presence in its smaller neighbor. But the killing remains a highly charged issue in Lebanon. A United Nations investigation initially implicated Syria, but media reports have said that the UN prosecutor may issue indictments against members of Hezbollah. Hezbollah denies any involvement. Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has dismissed the UN tribunal as an Israeli project, but Saad has defended the court's independence. Arguments over the tribunal's credibility, and the prospect of possible Hezbollah indictments, has shaken Lebanon's fragile national unity government which is led by Saad and includes Hezbollah ministers.
