Beirut – Syrian Brigadier General Rustom Ghazaleh, who has been implicated in the murder of a former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri, said Tuesday he was ready to resign if asked by Syrian President Bashar al Assad. ‘If the leadership asks me to die a martyr, I am ready,’ Ghazaleh, the former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, told the television news channel al Jazeera in a broadcast monitored in Beirut.

‘And if they ask me to resign, I am also ready,’ he added in the comments to al Jazeera in the interview in Damascus. Ghazaleh denied accusations of corruption, including charges last week by Syrian former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam that Ghazaleh took 35 million dollars from Lebanon’s Al Madina bank which collapsed two years ago. ‘These accusations are all baseless … It is part of the unjust campaign against Syria,’ he said. ‘I am ready…all my relatives are ready, to disclose our financial statements, and if they find any Syrian dime in any country, let them disclose it,’ he said.

A United nations probe has implicated Lebanese and Syrian officials in the February 14, 2005 assassination of Hariri that triggered massive protests ultimately leading to the end of Syria’s 29-year presence in Lebanon.

Ghazaleh was among a number of Syrian officials interviewed by U.N. investigators in Vienna in November.