Lebanon president grilled by UN probe

"President Emile Lahoud met with two members of the international fact-finding panel at 5:00 pm (Friday) ... and gave them true and precise information concerning telephone calls received by the president's office before the hideous crime," a statement from Lahoud's office said.

The meeting was Lahoud's first with the team of UN investigators led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.

Hariri's killing in a Beirut bomb blast on February 14 sparked an international outcry and eventually led Syria to withdraw its troops from neighbouring Lebanon after a 29-year military presence.

Several close Lahoud aides have been arrested on charges including pre-meditated murder, and were named in a report issued by the UN team in October that implicated high-level Syrian and Lebanese officials in the killing.