Khazen

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Lebanese former security chief arrested in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri has been taken to hospital with heart trouble, his lawyer said on Wednesday.Security sources said Brigadier General Raymond Azar, former head of military intelligence, was taken from prison to a Beirut hospital late on Tuesday and was in intensive care.

"He suffered from high blood pressure which affected his heart after the prison authorities asked his family to meet him in the same waiting room with dozens of ordinary detainees," Naji al-Boustani, Azar’s lawyer, told Reuters by telephone."They cited lame security excuses for this… He was moved to hospital but he is not in a critical condition," he added. Azar and three other top pro-Syrian former security chiefs have been detained in Lebanon on murder charges over the February 14 killing of Hariri and 22 other people in a Beirut truck bombing. U.N. investigators last week questioned Colonel GhassanTufayli, whose surveillance unit in military intelligence constantly wiretapped Hariri’s telephone calls and passed transcripts to Azar and Army Chief General Michel Suleiman.

Azar and three other top pro-Syrian former security chiefs have been detained in Lebanon on murder charges over the February 14 killing of Hariri and 22 other people in a Beirut truck bombing.

U.N. investigators last week questioned Colonel Ghassan Tufayli, whose surveillance unit in military intelligence constantly wiretapped Hariri’s telephone calls and passed transcripts to Azar and Army Chief General Michel Suleiman.

The U.N. inquiry’s interim report in October quoted Tufayli as saying Azar sent the transcripts to Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Lieutenant General Rustom Ghazali, head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon at