Syrian minister errs during eulogy

The Washington Times:

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa erred twice in his eulogy of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan calling the suicide an "assassination," said an-Nahar.

The public attorney who superintended an autopsy made the same mistake during a televised news conference.

"The 'tongue lapses' buttressed a worldwide conviction that Gen. Kanaan was 'willfully eliminated' to cover up a high-level involvement of the Assad regime in Lebanon's ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, refuting the official Syrian claim that the 63-year-old general had committed suicide," reported Beirut's an-Nahar newspaper, on its Internet Web site. READ MORE

Sharaa held the Lebanese media and leakages by the U.N. commission responsible for Kanaan's 'assassination' in a televised statement at his funeral on Thursday. He did not correct the first 'slip of the tongue.' Later in the statement Sharaa again called Kanaan's death an 'assassination' with an instant correction of 'pardon, suicide.'

Chief public attorney Muhammad al-Louji told a televised news conference in Damascus Thursday that Kanaan shot himself with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Al-Louji said an examination of the body and interviews with witnesses showed "Kanaan placed the tip of the revolver in his mouth and fired it."

"The act of killing, pardon, assassination, occurred at his office in the Interior Ministry at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday. He had left 45 minutes earlier, got into his car and drove home. He spent a little time there before returning to the office," al-Louji said.

The pressure on Syria is increasing. Next year in Damascus?