BEIRUT: A UN-backed tribunal on Tuesday found a Hezbollah member guilty of assassinating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a bomb blast in 2005. Three other Hezbollah suspects were cleared.
The verdict by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) – an international court based near The Hague, Netherlands – came more than 15 years after Hariri was killed on 14 February, 2005, along with 21 others in the huge explosion in Beirut. The four members of Iran-backed militia and political party Hezbollah were accused of organising and carrying out the attack, although the group was not formally charged and denied any involvement.
The four – Salim Ayyash, Assad Sabra, Hassan Oneissi, and Hassan Habib Merhi – were tried in absentia as Hezbollah has refused to disclose their whereabouts. Ayyash used a mobile phone identified by prosecutors as critical in the attack, a judge said.
The STL is “satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt” the evidence showed that Ayyash used the phone, Judge Micheline Braidy said, reading a summary of the 2,600-page verdict. However, prosecutors provided insufficient evidence to prove the three others were accomplices, said Judge Janet Nosworthy.
Presiding Judge David Re said the evidence was largely based on mobile phone network data with the suspects accused of tracking Hariri’s movements in the months leading up to the attack, and the phones going “dark” after the blast. Nosworthy said four different networks of mobile phones “were interconnected and coordinated with each other, and operated as covert networks at the relevant times”.
The court found the killing was politically motivated in an “act of terrorism designed to cause fear in the Lebanese population”. “The tribunal has found beyond a reasonable doubt that a suicide bomber triggered the blast,” said Re in reading out the verdict.
Syrian forces, which were based in Lebanon for more than 40 years, were forced to withdraw from the country as many Lebanese blamed Damascus for the killing. The government of Bashar Al Assad has denied any involvement. The tribunal exonerated both the leadership of Hezbollah and Syria citing a lack of evidence.
“The trial chamber is of the view that Syria and Hezbollah may have had motives to eliminate Mr Hariri and some of his political allies,” said Re. “However, there was no evidence Hezbollah’s leadership had any involvement in Mr Hariri’s murder, and there is no direct evidence of Syrian involvement in it.”