5 Years After an Assassination Rocked Lebanon, a Trial Ends on a Muted Note
June, 2011 - "Lebanon indicts four suspects over Rafik Hariri assassination in 2005"
After a long and involved investigation, a U.N.-backed tribunal emerged with only a single conviction, of a minor Hezbollah figure, in the 2005 bombing that killed the former prime minister of Lebanon.
Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, and 21 others were killed in an attack in Beirut in 2005. Mohamed Azakir/Reuters
By Marlise Simons and Ben Hubbard
Aug. 18, 2020 Updated 6:43 p.m. ET
The case went to trial in a country far from the crime scene with none of the accused in custody. It cost hundreds of millions of dollars to prosecute and employed armies of investigators, researchers and lawyers.
For a huge suicide car bomb attack in Beirut in 2005 that rattled the Middle East and killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others, a United Nations-backed tribunal in the Netherlands acquitted three defendants for lack of evidence.
The fourth man, Salim Ayyash, was convicted of participating in a conspiracy to carry out the bombing. But if he is ever apprehended, the court will have to try him all over again since he was tried in absentia.
The long-awaited verdict from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which was created in 2009 at the behest of the United Nations Security Council, disappointed many Lebanese and others who had hoped that an international inquiry would reveal — and punish — those responsible for the crime and break the country’s long cycle of impunity for political killings.
Although the court said that Syria and Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militant group, had motives to “eliminate” Mr. Hariri, it said it lacked direct evidence implicating them in the crime.
“It’s like in 9/11 if you name the hijackers and not bin Laden,” said Nadim Houry, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative .. https://www.arab-reform.net/ , a research center based in Paris. “This was way above Ayyash’s pay grade.”
It is unlikely that Mr. Ayyash will ever be found, he said, and in any case, he was “a cog in the system,” not the attack’s mastermind.
VIDEO - 1:35 - U.N. Tribunal Convicts Hezbollah Member in Hariri Assassination A United Nations-backed tribunal found one Lebanese man guilty in the 2005 bombing that killed Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon.
Mr. Hariri was a momentous figure in Lebanon’s politics, a charismatic billionaire businessman with extensive relationships in the United States, Europe and Saudi Arabia who used his wealth and connections to jump-start growth in Lebanon after its disastrous 15-year civil war ended in 1990.
But his killing in 2005 ushered in a new, turbulent era in Lebanese politics during which his Western- and Gulf-aligned political bloc competed for power with rivals backed by Syria and Iran, including Hezbollah, the powerful militant group and political party. A string of assassinations of other prominent figures followed, with none of their killers ever identified or punished.
Initially, many Lebanese hoped that the creation of the international tribunal would provide a way for justice to be done. But the investigation and hearings dragged on as the killing faded into the past.
In recent months, protests over corruption and poor governance have flared against the political elite, and the economy and currency have all but collapsed. The country is also reeling from a massive explosion in the Beirut port that killed more than 170 people and wounded 6,000.
Maha Yahya, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said it felt as if the tribunal were “from a different era.”
The verdict came as Lebanon’s politicians are wrangling over the possibility of an international investigation into the Beirut blast; its limited convictions could undermine hopes that those responsible for the explosion will be held accountable.
“After 15 years and a Special Tribunal for Lebanon with international investigators and we end up with this?” Ms. Yahya asked. “How is anyone ever going to be held accountable for the port explosion?”
Emergency personnel inspecting the scene after the car bombing that killed Mr. Hariri and 21 other people. Wael Hamzeh/EPA
Saad Hariri, a son of the assassinated politician and himself a former prime minister of Lebanon, attended Tuesday’s session and told reporters after the verdict that he and his family accepted it.
Writing on Twitter, he called it a “historic moment" and “a message to whoever carried out and planned this terrorist crime that the era of using crime for politics without punishment and without a price has ended.”
The court announced the verdicts after hourslong statements from its judges summarizing the case and the arguments of the prosecution and defense teams.
The court deemed the killing a politically motivated terrorist act and described all four defendants — Mr. Ayyash, Hassan Habib Merhi, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra — as supporters of Hezbollah.
Months before he was killed, the elder Hariri had resigned as prime minister in anger at Syria’s continuing interference in the country, including the presence of Syrian troops.
The judges did not say who had planned the attack, but said it was “very likely” that the final decision to kill him was made after a Feb. 2, 2005, meeting at which Mr. Hariri and other politicians had agreed to call for the “immediate and total withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.”
A month afer the assassination, protesters took to the streets of Beirut to denounce Syria. Patrick Baz/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images
After he was killed, general suspicion fell on Syria, which denied any role. The brazen attack, which injured hundreds of people and left a yawning crater near Beirut’s waterfront, brought more than a million protesters into the streets, and the outcry, combined with international pressure, forced Syria to withdraw its troops.
In reading a summary of their 2,600-page ruling, the judges said the murder plan relied on a massive load of high-grade explosives, and was intended to cause “fear and panic” that would resonate throughout Lebanon and the region.
Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has repeatedly dismissed the tribunal as a Western conspiracy and has threatened to go after any followers who cooperated with it. The group did not immediately comment on Tuesday’s verdicts, but Mr. Nasrallah said recently that it considered the court’s finding irrelevant.
To critics of the tribunal, the prosecution of a few low-level Hezbollah operatives is a far cry from the findings of United Nations investigators who were sent to Beirut soon after the assassination.
In a report, these investigators called the killing an elaborate professional conspiracy that required “substantial logistical support,” considerable financing and “military precision in its execution.”
Diplomats said at the time that Mr. Mehlis had reluctantly ended his mission because he had been warned about two assassination plots against him. At least two Lebanese police officers who assisted the tribunal’s investigations have been killed.
Saad Hariri, a son of the assassinated politician and himself a former prime minister of Lebanon, leaving the court on Tuesday. Mr. Hariri told reporters that he and his family had accepted the verdict. Pierre Crom/Getty Images
The prosecutors built their case largely on circumstantial evidence, much of it extensive records of cellphones used as operatives covertly tracked Mr. Hariri’s movements for weeks.
The court-appointed defense lawyers had all asked for acquittals, saying there was no proof that their clients had used the cellphones in question. Electronic records of hundreds of calls could reveal location, date and time, the lawyers argued, but they did not confirm the identity of the users.
The verdict was originally scheduled for Aug. 7, but was postponed after the Beirut port explosion.
Questions have been raised about the cost of the court’s 400-strong staff, including a roster of prosecutors and 11 full-time judges who were involved in the case.
Half of its $60 million annual budget has been paid by Lebanon, with help from Saudi Arabia, and half by voluntary contributions from Western countries and Arab Gulf states. For many critics, this enormous expense has not justified the symbolism of an absentee trial.
Ehsan Fayed Al Nasser, whose husband Talal Nasser headed Mr. Hariri’s security team and was killed in the blast, said by phone on Tuesday that the tribunal had gathered evidence, identified suspects and sentenced one man.
“I am hoping he’ll be arrested and lead us to the mastermind behind this crime,” she said.
Hwaida Saad and Kareem Chehayeb contributed reporting.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri? Searching for the Truth in the Middle East Dec. 18, 2005 [.. out excerpt .. "Mehlis has no doubt achieved success," said Chibli Mallat, a Lebanese lawyer who plans to run for president, who is, incidentally, anti-Syrian. P - And yet to many political analysts and diplomats involved the region, the investigation also appeared to reflect a certain naïveté about political and cultural realities. P - "Were talking about totally different mentalities," said Ibrahim Hamidi, the Damascus correspondent for the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat. "Here, there's not the same respect for the law. In Germany, you have a legal system that everyone trusts; if someone gives testimony under oath you can basically trust that. But in the Middle East, the law isn't institutional. And there is huge competition among institutions of the state and among people in those institutions." P - In Syria, for example, there are half a dozen branches of the secret police. And, as in Lebanon, where government power is distributed among major religious groups, each power center has its own agenda. This means that government institutions in both countries are generally weak; the quest for power and dominance among Christians, Druze, Shiites, Sunnis, Alawites and Kurds often matters more than job titles or government documents. And an investigator who lacks a thorough understanding of all those relationships and interrelationships may not be able to judge the significance of the evidence he is given. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/weekinreview/who-killed-rafik-hariri-searching-for-the-truth-in-the-middle.html
Ben Hubbard is the Beirut bureau chief. He has spent more than a decade in the Arab world, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen. @NYTBen • Facebook
The Non-Return of American Isolationism By Michael Cohen .. Jul 14 2011, 7:00 AM ET 10 Why are leading politicians in both parties being accused of a foreign policy sin that none has actually committed? Mitt Romney and Ron Paul at a GOP debate in New Hampshire in January / Reuters P - At a time when Washington can't seem to agree on anything, there is one area of growing consensus -- a new wave of isolationism is on the rise, and it must be stopped. p - During last month's first Republican presidential debate, several of the candidates, found surprising areas of consensus on the foreign policy issues dominating headlines this summer. Mitt Romney advocated withdrawal from Afghanistan. Michele Bachman and Herman Cain questioned whether the U.S. truly has vital interests in Libya to justify its intervention there. The next day the New York Times said, a "renewed streak of isolationism" had emerged in the GOP. President Obama took up the charge, arguing that "some would have America retreat from our responsibility as an anchor of global security, and embrace an isolation that ignores the very real threats that we face." Such conservative writers as Mark Thiessen and Max Boot responded that Obama's call for "nation building at home" (rather than in Afghanistan) revealed Obama's own isolationist impulses. GOP candidate Tim Pawlenty even went after his own party, saying, "America already has one political party devoted to decline, retrenchment and withdrawal. It does not need a second one." https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77080600
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