Syrian Official Found Dead

Interior Minister Was Questioned in U.N. Lebanon Probe

By Alia Ibrahim
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A12

BEIRUT, Oct. 12 -- Syria's interior minister was found dead Wednesday in his office in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in what the government described as a suicide. The death of Maj. Gen. Ghazi Kanaan came just days before the planned release of a U.N. report on suspected Syrian involvement in the car-bomb assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister.

Kanaan, 63, who for two decades was Syria's top intelligence official here in neighboring Lebanon, fatally shot himself, according to a statement issued by SANA, the official Syrian news agency. The statement gave no further details, saying only that an official investigation had been launched.