FRANCE. AUTHORITIES REFUSES TO EXTRADITE SYRIAN OVER HARIRI MURDER

French legal authorities refused to extradite to Lebanon an ex-Syrian intelligence officer to answer questions about the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq el-Hariri.
A court in Versailles, near Paris, took the decision because it had not been given guarantees that Zouheir Mohammad Assediq would not be liable to the death penalty if extradited, and freed him. Assediq, who was the object of an international arrest warrant requested by a Lebanese prosecutor, had been detained in October 2005 in a Paris suburb.