●Khaddam defects: Bashar threatened Hariri

After resigning as vice-president at the Baath congress in June 2005, Abdel Halim Khaddam told al-Arabiya from Paris on 30 December 2005 that Bashar al-Assad had threatened Rafik Hariri months before his assassination, saying he would crush anyone who obstructed his decisions, and that the Syrian services could not carry out an operation of that scale without his knowledge, without directly accusing Syria of the assassination. His memoirs quote Bashar telling Hariri: "I decide who rules Lebanon." The Baath expelled him and Syrian deputies demanded his trial for treason.