(Adds U.S. contribution to UN court, paragraphs 7-9) UNITED NATIONS, Sept 27 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council called on Thursday for the Lebanese presidential election, already delayed once, to go ahead next month without "violence, fear and intimidation." Lebanon's deadlocked parliament failed to elect a new head of state on Tuesday, six days after the assassination of prominent Christian lawmaker Antoine Ghanem. The anti-Syrian majority and the opposition are trying to reach a deal before the house meets again on Oct. 23. In a statement read out by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, the Security Council said it "looked forward for the parliament to proceed, as appropriate to the election of the President." France currently chairs the 15-nation council. It called for the vote to be held "without any foreign interference, in full respect of the sovereignty of Lebanon, on the basis of national unity and in an atmosphere free of violence, fear and intimidation, in particular against the representatives of the Lebanese people and institutions." The parliament's failure to find the two-thirds majority needed to elect a president in a first round of voting reflects a deep divide between factions that want to align Lebanon with the West and those favoring close ties with Syria and Iran. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad later announced that Washington was donating $5 million to the start-up costs of a special U.N. court to try the suspected killers of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. The tribunal, to be based in the Netherlands, was set up by the Security Council in May but is not expected to start work before mid-2008 and no defendants have so far been named. Its first-year costs have been put at $35 million, part of it to come from the Lebanese government. Hariri and 22 others were killed in a Beirut car bomb blast in February 2005 that some Lebanese politicians have blamed on Syria. Damascus has denied involvement.
