Many accused U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of editing the report, even though he promised not to touch it. But U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had made no attempt to influence the report or Mehlis's investigation.

In a hastily prepared press conference, Chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis said he edited the section to protect the presumption of innocence and because the account in question relied on a single witness, whose credibility he declined to comment on.

Following are the original and final versions of a key section of a U.N. report which implicates senior Syrian and Lebanese officials in the plot to assassinate former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

ORIGINAL VERSION ( Paragraph 96 of page 29):
"One witness of Syrian origin but resident in Lebanon, who claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, has stated that approximately two weeks after the adoption of Security Council resolution 1559 (on Sept. 2, 2004), Maher Assad, Asef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleiman and Jamil Al-Sayyed decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri. He claimed that Sayyed went several times to Syria to plan the crime, meeting once at the Meridian Hotel in Damascus and several times at the Presidential Place and the office of Shawkat. The last meeting was held in the house of Shawkat approximately 7 to 10 days before the assassination and included Mustapha Hamdan. The witness had close contact with high ranked Syrian officers posted in Lebanon."

EDITED VERSION:
"One witness of Syrian origin but resident in Lebanon, who claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, has stated that approximately two weeks after the adoption of Security Council resolution 1559, senior Lebanese and Syrian officials decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri. He claimed that a senior Lebanese security official went several times to Syria to plan the crime, meeting once at the Meridian Hotel in Damascus and several times at the Presidential Place and the office of a senior Syrian security official. The last meeting was held in the house of the same senior Syrian security official approximately seven to 10 days before the assassination and included another senior Lebanese security official. The witness had close contact with high ranked Syrian officers posted in Lebanon."

Maher Assad is the younger brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With his name deleted from the above section, he is not mentioned anywhere in Mehlis's report.

Asef Shawkat is the brother -in- law of President Bashar al-Assad (married to his only sister, Bushra). He heads Syria's powerful Military Intelligence. His name is mentioned once in the report's final version, but Stern Magazine reported Thursday that he was the key man behind the assassination.

General Hassan Khalil of Syria is a retired chief of Military Intelligence. His name does not appear at all in the final version.

Bahjat Suleiman is a member of President Bashar's inner circle. His name is nowhere in the final version.

Major General Jamil Al-Sayyed of Lebanon served as head of General Security from 1998 until May 2005, when he resigned under heavy pressure from the Lebanese opposition after Hariri's killing. His name is appears throughout the report as it details the plot and is now in Jail

Brigadier General Mustapha Hamdan is President Emile Lahoud's closest aide, in charge of ensuring the president's personal safety. He accompanied the president wherever he went. His name also appears frequently throughout the Mehlis report and is now in Jail.

2 names do not appear in the report:
Former Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan, who was Lebanon's ruler for almost 2 decades. The Syrian authorities claimed that he had committed suicide, but this was quickly challenged by General Aoun who said that this "could have been an assassination".

Col. Mohsin Hamoud, a former military intelligence officer who served in Lebanon. According to reports, Hamoud is the colonel who reportedly drove the Mitsubishi Canter bomb Van from Syria to Lebanon on Jan. 21.

Many analysts blamed Annan for editintg the report and speculated a" conspiracy" or a "deal" behind the changes.

"This is Mr. Mehlis' investigation. This is his report. The secretary-general has at no time made any attempt to influence the report," UN spokesman Dujarric told reporters.

"I would urge you to look toward unfortunate clerical error rather than to conspiracy," Dujarric said.

Mehlis, who plans to brief the Security Council on the report next Tuesday, said any editing changes "resulted from the editorial process carried out by my team, under my direction, and are my responsibility."

"No one outside of the report team influenced those changes. No changes whatsoever were suggested by the secretary-general or by anyone at the United Nations," he said.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the flap was distracting the United Nations from the report's main findings, which he said showed "clear evidence" of Syrian obstruction of justice and "probable cause to believe that the assassination could not have been undertaken without the knowledge of senior figures in the Syrian intelligence."

"In the absence of serious Syrian cooperation on substantive matters, the mission can't get to the ultimate truth," Bolton told reporters.

The report's substance "doesn't change no matter what version you have," he said.

No doubt, the omission of names of key Syrian officials created a lot more attention to the report and the fact that the anti Syrian opposition was right in the first place to blame Syria for Hariri's assassination. As one analyst on LBC TV said yesterday " there will be less and less room in the future for Syrian denials" .

Regardless which version of the report we pick , all versions point to top Syrian & Lebanese intelligence officials and these officials could not have undertaken such a humongous task without the knowledge of the top leaders in both countries. The pressure on presidents Lahoud and Assad will therefore grow day by day. In Lebanon many now expect Lahoud to resign, since his credibility has greatly diminished, to a point where he is now completely isolated. What will happen in Syria is anybody's guess. The US and France are trying to get Assad to modify his behavior and if this doesn't happen other options have not been ruled out.

In any case, the report as it stands right now is an initial finding.
More investigation will follow in the coming weeks and months until the whole truth is revealed. Mehlis' commission was extended till Dec. 15 and many now think his mission will continue till 2006. Mehlis is not a quitter as evident from his previous investigations.

Sources: Ya Libnan, UN, UPI, Reuters, LBC TV