Hezbollah member guilty over assassination of ex-lebanon PM
● But Iran-backed group and Syria cleared of any involvement
Un-backed tribunal has convicted one member of the Hezbollah militant group and acquitted three others of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon said Salim Ayyash was guilty as a co-conspirator of five charges linked to his involvement in the suicide truck bombing.
Hariri and 21 others were killed and 226 were wounded in a huge blast outside a seaside hotel in Beirut on 14 Febuary 2005.
However, after a years-long investigation and trial, three other Hezbollah members were acquitted of all charges that they also were involved in the killing of Hariri that sent shock waves through the Middle East.
The tribunal’s judges also said there was no evidence the leadership of the Hezbollah militant group and Syria were involved in the attack.
Sketching the complex political backdrop for the assassination, presiding judge David Re of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said that, in the months before his death, Hariri was a supporter of reducing the influence of Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
He said judges, who studied reams of evidence in the trial of four Hezbollah members accused of involvement in the bombing, were “of the view that Syria and Hezbollah may have had motives to eliminate Mr Hariri, and some of his political allies”.
But he added that there was no evidence that the “Hezbollah leadership had any involvement in Mr Hariri’s murder, and there is no direct evidence of Syrian involvement in it”.
Re was speaking as he delivered the final judgments in the trial. The court was not expected to rule on either Hezbollah or Syria – but on the four named Hezbollah susa pects – as the tribunal can only accuse individuals, not groups or states. But the fact the tribunal appeared to explicitly and categorically rule out evidence tying Hezbollah’s leadership to the crime was good news for the Iran-backed group, which dominates Lebanese politics and has come under increased scrutiny and pressure at home.
The verdicts were delayed by nearly two weeks as a mark of respect for victims of another devastating explosion – the detonation of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut’s port. The 4 August blast killed around 180 people, injured more than 6,000, left a quarter of a million with homes unfit to live in and plunged a nation already reeling from economic and social malaise even deeper into crisis.
Re started the hearing with a minute’s silence to honour victims of the 2005 bombing and their families as well as those made homeless by the port blast.
He was reading a summary of the written judgment that runs to more than 2,600 pages with some 13,000 footnotes.
The guilty verdict could compound tensions in the tiny country. Hariri was Lebanon’s most prominent Sunni politician at the time of his assassination, while Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim group backed and funded by Tehran.
The trial centred on the alleged roles of four Hezbollah members in the suicide truck bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others and wounded 226 people. A hearing will be held at a later date to determine Ayyash’s sentence. As the Un-backed court has no death sentence, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
Ayyash is not likely to serve time as Hezbollah had vowed not to hand over any suspects.
Former Lebanese premier Saad Hariri says the family accepts the verdicts on the killing of his father, and told reporters: “The court has ruled.” Now, he said, the family awaits the implementation of justice.
“Justice will be executed, regardless of how long it takes,” he said.