The Syrian parliament voted unanimously on Saturday to put their former vice president Abed el-Halim Khadem on trial for severe treason following his accusation of President Bashar Assad threatened former prime minister Rafik Hariri months before his assassination. The harsh statements against Assad came on Friday in an interview Khadem gave to the satellite news station al-Arabiya. In the interview the former vice president said that Hariri left the meeting with Assad with high blood pressure and a bloodied nose. Khadem also insisted that the former Lebanese prime minister could not have been killed without Assad's approval. Hariri was killed in Beirut on February 14 in a massive truck explosion that also killed 20 other bystanders. That incident was considered the stimulus that forced Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon. The UN launched an investigative team that studied the assassination and believed the tracks to the killers lead to Syria.More about:Rafic Hariri, Bashar al-Assad, President of the United States, Lebanonfunction initServerVars() { _headup.clientHost = 'http://newstopics.jpost.com'; _headup.termsFromServer = 'Rafik Hariri$$Bashar Assad$$President$$Lebanon$$Beirut$$Syria'; _headup.annotatedTerms = ['dbpedia:Rafic_Hariri$$1', 'dbpedia:Bashar_al-Assad$$1', 'dbpedia:President_of_the_United_States$$1'] _headup.widgetMode = 'snippet'; _headup.snippetButtonStyle = 'banner'; _headup.blackListedUrl = false; } <!-- Terms Count: 6 TTL: 60 Terms From Server: Rafik Hariri, Bashar Assad, President, Lebanon, Beirut, Syria DateTime: 6/12/2011 12:51:25 AM -->