country has been accused of bomb attacks against Christian areas in Lebanon, has committed suicide, news reports said Wednesday, October 12.
Syria’s official news agency quoted officials as saying that the minister died Wednesday, October 12, in a Damascus hospital.
"The minister of interior died in his office this afternoon after committing suicide and the authorities are investigating the incident," Reuters quoted SANA the Syrian Arab News Agency as saying.
Hours before his death, Kanaan had been interviewed by a Lebanese radio station after he called to refute allegations that he accepted bribes and payoffs while in the Lebanon post. Kanaan contacted Voice of Lebanon radio station and gave what he called his "final statement". He asked for his comments to be passed to other broadcast media.
"I want to make clear that our relation with our brothers in Lebanon was based on love and mutual respect… We have served Lebanon’s interest with honour and honesty," he said.
TERRORISM ALLEGATIONS
Kanaan returned to Damascus in 2002 to head the political intelligence agency and he joined the cabinet in 2004. The United States reportedly froze his assets there in July saying he had aided terrorism in Lebanon.
His death came days before the release of a United Nations report into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. Kanaan was among those interviewed as witnesses by a German prosecutor heading the UN investigation into Hariri’s killing, several reports said.
Analysts say it is likely to implicate Syria’s intelligence regime and its allies in Lebanon in the bombing, that killed 20 people in central Beirut in February.
SEVERAL EXPLOSIONS
A series of explosions has rocked Lebanon since the February killing of former Prime Minister Hariri threw the country into its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Critics say these bombings, several of which have been carried out in Christian areas of Beirut and other towns, were supported by Syria, whose troops were forced to withdraw from Lebanon this year after three decades.
The Syrian government has strongly denied any involvement in the bomb attacks and the killing of the prime minister. In the latest incident last month, a bomb placed under a car exploded Sunday, September 25, in the Christian port city of Jounieh northeast of Beirut and seriously a well-known Christian television anchor.
May Chidiac, who worked for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, had been critical towards Syria’s involvement in Lebanon. She was among the relative few women in Journalism and was seen as part of a new generation of critical journalists in a crucial era for Lebanon which was still under the control of Syria for the last 15 years, even after the civil war officially ended.
MORE ATTACKS
The explosion came a little over a week after at least one person died and 23 were injured when a powerful bomb rocked a mainly Christian residential area of Beirut.
That September 16 explosion was heard throughout the Lebanese capital, and reportedly went off in front of a coffee shop, killing the owner, not far from a branch of Lebanon’s Byblos Bank and a hotel in the area of Achrafieh. There are fears within the Christian community that Lebanon could plunge into civil conflict.
In other attacks against opinion makers, an anti-Syrian journalist and Christian, Samir Kassir, 45, was killed in June. (With BosNewsLife Chief International Correspondent Stefan J. Bos and reports from Lebanon).
