Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan died yesterday in his office, and the Syrian government says that it was suicide; he shot himself through the mouth. But was it? Kenaan was head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon from 1982 to 2003, and basically ran the country for Syria. He was recently questioned as part of the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri led by Detlev Mehlis (see my post, Another Assassination Attempt in Lebanon: Syria & the Mehlis Investigation, for background). Nine Lebanese security officials with close ties to Syria were detained as part of the investigation, and then Kenaan was among those Syrian officials whom Mehlis demanded be questioned after complaining that Damascus was not cooperating fully. It seems fairly clear that he gave testimony implicating someone – was it himself, or others in the regime?

One argument that has been made is that since Kenaan actually supported Hariri, he would not have been involved in his killing. I don’t think that this is necessarily true. If the decision on high was made to eliminate Hariri, Kenaan would have had to go along with it even if he didn’t like the idea. Several hours before his death, Kenaan gave a radio interview in which he denied all accusations of implication, and then at the end very abruptly said that it might be his last interview. Also shortly before Kenaan’s death, Bashar Assad gave an interview with CNN saying that if any Syrian was involved in Hariri’s killing, it would be treason.

The hilariously apt cartoon below appeared in the Arab newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi. Remembering that Arabic reads from right to left, the four captions are translated as follows: “Suicide by the Russian Method”; “Suicide by the Japanese Samarai Method”; “Suicide by the French Method”; “And Suicide by the Syrian Method.” The “Syrian Method, ” of course, is the one showing the guy being tied up and shot in the head.

As for what happened, there seem to be three plausible theories:

(1) Kenaan killed himself because he was involved in Hariri’s murder, and Mehlis’ questioning of him made it clear to him that evidence implicating him had already been obtained. He therefore wanted to spare himself and his family the shame of prosecution and life imprisonment thereafter.

(2) Kenaan killed himself because although not directly involved in Hariri’s murder, the regime made it clear that he was going to be the fall guy, and he killed himself for the reason given above – to avoid the shame and life imprisonment. This is the “coerced suicide” option.

(3) Kenaan was murdered because he had knowledge of evidence implicating the regime – either President Bashar Assad or perhaps the head of the Syrian military – and couldn’t be allowed to testify.

I think he probably killed himself under pressure after being told that he would take the fall, and like Rommel was allowed to kill himself to spare his family. And the fact that he said that “this may be the last statement I can give” only hours before suggests that this wasn’t something that happened to him suddenly. I listened to a recording of the interview on Al-Jazeera and he went on and on denying everything, saying how close the Syrians and Lebanese were, and then at the end very abruptly added the statement quoted.

Here are some links to further information about Kenaan’s death and the ongoing implications for Syria:
– Reuters, Syrian Interior Minister Commits Suicide After Probe
– Haazretz has a news service brief combining several recent stories about Syria.
– Syria Comment has a long and informative post on this. Joshua Landes argues that Kenaan might have been the “Syrian Musharraf” who the United States was hoping would bring about a coup, and was thus murdered to eliminate the threat.
– Michael Trotten’s Middle East Journal also has some thoughts on this event; nobody he has spoken to in Lebanon about this thinks that Kenaan voluntarily killed himself.

Kirk H. Sowell, Arab World Analysis.com