In 2005, Rafic Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated. "The Christian Science Monitor" reported that "Syria was widely blamed for Hariri's murder. In the months leading to the assassination, relations between Hariri and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad plummeted amid an atmosphere of threats and intimidation." The BBC reported in December 2005 that an interim United Nations report "implicated Syrian officials", while "Damascus has strongly denied involvement in the car bomb which killed Hariri in February".