that he had personally stated that this would not happen. Mehlis himself denied outside influence on the report, and said that Annan did not suggest any changes. The motivation for removing the names is not known. Witnesses recanted and killed In December 2005, the UN's case against Syria came under scrutiny when a main witness of the Mehlis Report (Hussam Taher Hussam) was publicly identified and dramatically recanted his testimony, claiming he had been bribed and tortured by Lebanese interests to testify against Syria. However, the 10 December Mehlis Report asserts receipt of "credible information that, prior to Mr. Hussam's recent public recantation of his statement to the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIC), Syrian officials had arrested and threatened some of Mr. Hussam's close relatives in Syria." Similar circumstances surround Zuhair Ibn Muhammad Said Saddik, who was later revealed to be the unnamed primary witness in the report. He originally approached the commission with detailed information about the planning of the attack but then later changed his testimony and confessed to participating in the attack. In his testimony, Saddik said that senior Syrian and Lebanese officials had met in his apartment to plan the assassination. He is currently under arrest in Paris at the request of Mehlis for his possible involvement in the Hariri assassination. Subsequent to this, the UN commission which had submitted the Mehlis Report to the UN security council has raised serious doubts about the reliability and the credibility of Saddik's declarations. Nawar Habib Donna, a Tripoli cell phone dealer, who sold five of the eight prepaid phone cards connected to the killing, was killed in an apparent car accident in November 2005. In popular culture Rabee Jaber published an Arabic novel, The Mehlis Report, in the immediate aftermath of the preliminary report in 2005. See also Cedar Revolution Ghazi Kanaan References External links The official October 2005 Mehlis report (link to the UN site) BBC Mirror of the Mehlis Report (some have reported problems accessing the UN site) The second (December 2005) Mehlis Report Mehlis Report A marked-up copy distributed to journalists 20 October 2005] Connecting the dots in Lebanon Times Online On the different versions of the report 2005 in Lebanon 2005 in Syria Lebanon–Syria relations