BEIRUT, Lebanon — Journalist and lawmaker Gibran Tueni, a relentless critic of Syria who spent months in France fearing assassination, was killed Monday in a car bombing — only a day after returning to his homeland.
A previously unknown group claimed responsibility, but suspicion quickly settled on Syria, where the state-controlled media has been highly critical of anti-Syrian reports by Lebanese journalists.
The slaying silenced the blistering editorial voice of Tueni, the 48-year-old general manager of Lebanon's leading newspaper, An-Nahar, founded in 1933 by his grandfather.
His motorcade was attacked hours before the United Nations released a follow-up report on its probe of the February car bomb assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The report by chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis, who earlier implicated Syria in the killing, said new evidence reinforced investigators' belief that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence likely knew about the Hariri killing in advance.
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The new report accused Syria of trying to obstruct the probe by demanding it revise earlier findings after a crucial witness recanted.
After Mehlis' earlier report, the U.N. Security Council warned Syria it would face further action — possibly including sanctions — if it didn't cooperate fully.
Tueni was one of the hundreds of witnesses who were interviewed by Mehlis. An earlier Mehlis report reported Tueni as saying he was told by Hariri that Syrian President Bashar Assad had threatened the Lebanese leader directly.
While Syria has denied involvement in both killings, the United States, France and Tueni's Lebanese allies said the slaying would not distract them from pressuring Syria to cooperate with the U.N. inquiry.
President Bush condemned the slaying as a murderous act "aimed at subjugating Lebanon to Syrian domination and silencing the Lebanese press." He insisted that Syria comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for an end to its interference in Lebanon "once and for all."
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