Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan committed suicide at his office on Wednesday, the official Syrian News Agency SANA said.

Kanaan, who was Syria’s top official in Lebanon for two decades until 2002, had been interviewed two weeks earlier by U.N. investigators probing the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

“The minister of interior died in his office this afternoon after committing suicide and the authorities are investigating the incident,” SANA said in a report.

Hours before the news broke, Kanaan spoke to a Lebanese radio station, denying reports in Lebanese media that he showed the U.N. investigators checks paid to him by the late Hariri.

“I think this is the last statement I might give,” Kanaan said at the end of the phone interview with Voice of Lebanon.