Hezbollah suspects to be tried over Rafik Hariri

[Swede]

Source: BBC

A UN-backed tribunal has published charges against four suspects in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and says it has enough evidence to try them.

The four, all connected to Hezbollah, were linked to the killing by circumstantial evidence from phone records, an indictment says.

Lebanon has not been able to arrest the men, who will be tried in absentia.

Rafik Hariri and 21 others were killed in February 2005 in central Beirut.



Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14557594

[oberliner]

1. Indictment in Hariri Assassination Is Published

Source: New York Times

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister in 2005 released the full indictment Wednesday against members of Hezbollah named in the killing, a move that could exacerbate tensions in a country polarized by the repercussions of the investigation.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement that is the most powerful single actor in the country, has long denied involvement in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, which redrew the country’s political map and led to years of discord and strife. But many in Lebanon have feared that details of the indictment — how the assassination was actually carried out on a seaside corniche in the capital — would deepen divisions here.

The indictment will almost surely serve as fodder for both sides in the debate. It relies heavily on phone records and offers circumstantial evidence, but prosecutors acknowledged they have no smoking gun in the case. Hezbollah and Lebanese officials have long said that Israel has penetrated Lebanon’s telecommunications network; two senior employees of one cellphone company were arrested last year for spying.

The tribunal’s prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, said in a statement that unsealing the 47-page indictment “answers many questions.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/world/middleeast/18lebanon.html

[bemildred]

2. I pulled a copyof the indictment, should be interesting. nt

[bemildred]

3. Prosecutors: No Smoking Gun In Hariri Assassination (AP)

A long-awaited international indictment unsealed Wednesday offers no direct evidence linking four Hezbollah suspects to the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, despite years of painstaking investigations.

The indictment, which relies heavily on circumstantial evidence such as telephone records to link the men to the crime, played into efforts by the powerful Iranian-backed Hezbollah to discredit a case that has consumed and divided Lebanon for more than six years.

"The text in our hands now based on analysis and not clear evidence," Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech. "Those who were indicted should not be called charged but unjustly treated."

Much of the information contained in the indictment had been leaked to the media over the past two years, which Nasrallah said was a sign that the probe was tainted beyond repair.

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/17/139719678/no-smoking-gun-in-hariri-assassination

[bemildred]

4. Hezbollah rejects STL indictment, says lacks solid evidence

BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasralh rejected Wednesday the unsealed indictment released earlier in the day by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), saying it lacked solid evidence.

“There is no real evidence … the only thing that the indictment is based on is telecoms data,” said Nasrallah, who spoke via video-link during an iftar sponsored by the Association to Support the Islamic Resistance.

The STL, established in 2007 to try suspects in the assassination of five-time Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, lifted earlier Wednesday confidentiality of its indictment against four members of Hezbollah: Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra.

The suspects are still at large and the Hezbollah chief has said that the four will not be apprehended but tried in absentia instead.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Aug-17/Hezbollah-chief-to-hold-televised-speech.ashx