DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the UN investigator into the murder of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri turned down a Syrian invitation to visit Damascus. 

Syria announced on Wednesday that it had invited Detlev Mehlis, the German magistrate heading the UN probe into the February 14 killing in a Beirut bomb blast, to sign a cooperation accord in Damascus. But Assad said in a speech at Damascus University that Mehlis had rejected a Syrian offer for him to visit Damascus as well as suggestions over cooperation between the UN probe and Syria’s own commission of inquiry into the murder.

Damascus had offered Mehlis the chance to agree a legal protocol with Syria and had also proposed that his inquiry could take place on Syrian territory while still under the banner of the United Nations, Assad said.

"I telephoned (Egyptian president) Hosni Mubarak yesterday to look at the possibility the inquiry could take place at the Arab League (in Cairo) but Mehlis refused," Assad added.