Was it really suicide?

A reader sent me an e-mail about the 'suicide' of Ghazi Kanaan, Syria's interior minister and who was Syria's intelligence chief in Beirut for 20 years, asking

Isn't it more likely Assad murdered him? Pehaps to prevent him from giving the UN investigators too much info? It seems the only source explaining the death as a 'suicide' is Syria's state run newspaper ... so of course it must be true?

A good point. Even today on CNN, where they ran an interview of Assad by Amanpour, there was little discussion on the 'suicide' and no questions for Assad.

This BBC report notes that the Lebanese press is asking a lot of questions about this so-called 'suicide'.

Lebanon's L'Orient-Le Jour finds the official Syrian version "far from convincing".

"Did Ghazi Kanaan commit suicide or was he made to commit suicide?" it asks.

The paper owned by the family of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, al-Mustaqbal, points out that Kanaan was found dead only eight days before the publication of a UN report into Hariri's killing, for which many Lebanese hold Syria responsible.

Kanaan was a key witness in the UN probe led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who returned to Beirut early on Wednesday.

"Most reactions, public and private, among Lebanon's political circles link the incident directly to the UN probe," says the paper, speaking of "the suicide mystery and its timing".