UN-backed tribunal to issue verdict today in Hariri killing
Hezbollah, which denies involvement, calls it Israeli plot to tarnish the group
More than 15 years after the truck bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, a UN-backed tribunal in the Netherlands is announcing verdict today in the trial of four members of the militant group Hezbollah allegedly involved in the killing, which deeply divided the tiny country.
The verdict at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, based in a village on the outskirts of the Dutch city of The Hague, are expected to further add to soaring tensions in Lebanon, two weeks after a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port that killed nearly 180 people, injured more than 6,000 and destroyed thousands of homes in the Lebanese capital.
Unlike the blast that killed Hariri and 21 others on February 14, 2005, the August 4 explosion was believed to be a result of nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that accidentally ignited at Beirut’s port. While the cause of the fire that provided the trigger is still not clear, Hezbollah, which maintains huge influence over Lebanese politics, is being sucked into the public fury directed at the country’s ruling politicians. Even before the devastating Beirut port blast, the country’s leaders were concerned about violence after the verdicts. Hariri was Lebanon’s most prominent politician at the time.
Result ‘almost redundant’
Some Lebanese see the tribunal as an impartial way of uncovering the truth about Hariri’s slaying, while Hezbollah — which denies involvement — calls it an Israeli plot to tarnish the group. One analyst believes the lengthy investigation and trial have rendered the result almost redundant. The four defendants remain at large. Michael Young of Carnegie Middle East Centre wrote recently that the verdicts “will seem like little more than a postscript to an out-of-print book.”
“The UN investigation was glowingly referred to once as a mechanism to end impunity. It has proven to be exactly the contrary,” Young wrote, saying those believed to have carried out the assassination “risk almost nothing today.”
But for others, especially those more closely linked to the violence that has plagued Lebanon, the verdicts still carry significance.
“It’s going to be a great, great moment not only for me as a victim but for me as a Lebanese, as an Arab and as an international citizen looking for justice everywhere,” said prominent former legislator and ex-Cabinet Minister Marwan Hamadeh, who was seriously wounded in a blast four months before Hariri’s assassination.