ZCZC
BFF-01
LEBANON-UN-TRIBUNAL-HARIRI
International court to sentence killer of Lebanon’s Hariri
LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands, Dec 11, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – A UN-backed tribunal
will on Friday sentence a Hezbollah member convicted of the 2005
assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafic Hariri, with prosecutors
demanding a life term.
Salim Ayyash, 57, was found guilty in absentia of murder on August 18 by
the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon over the suicide bombing
that killed the Sunni billionaire politician and 21 other people.
Ayyash remains on the run, with Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Shiite
Hezbollah movement, refusing to hand him over, alongside three other
defendants who were eventually acquitted.
Prosecutors in a hearing in November said a life term was the “only just
and proportionate sentence” for Ayyash, given that it was the “most serious
terrorist attack that has occurred on Lebanese soil.”
They have also demanded the seizure of Ayyash’s assets.
Hariri served as Lebanon’s prime minister until he resigned in October
2004.
He was killed in February 2005 when a suicide bomber detonated a van filled
with explosives as his armoured convoy drove past. As well as those killed,
another 226 were wounded in the blast.
In their long-awaited ruling in August, judges said there was sufficient
evidence to show that Ayyash was at the centre of a network of mobile phone
users who scoped out Hariri’s movements for months before his assassination.
– ‘Culture of impunity’ –
But there was not enough evidence to convict Ayyash’s co-defendants Assad
Sabra, Hussein Oneissi and Hassan Habib Merhi, they said.
The judges added that there was no proof to tie Hezbollah’s leadership or
its allies in Damascus to the attack.
Legal experts said the sentencing was still important, even without Ayyash
in the dock.
“In absentia trials are of course not the ideal way of dispensing
international justice,” Christophe Paulussen, senior researcher at the Asser
Institute in The Hague, told AFP.
International tribunals were like “a giant without arms and legs” since
they relied on states to arrest suspects and could not enforce orders
themselves.
“But even with this handicap, the STL has now at least established a very
authoritative judicial record about what happened 15 years ago, thus
assisting the Lebanese society in moving away from a culture of impunity
towards one of accountability,” said Paulussen.
The UN Security Council agreed in 2007 to establish the court, billed as
the world’s first international tribunal set up to probe terrorist crimes.
It opened its doors in 2009, although the Hariri trial itself did not
formally start until 2014.
The court has cost at least $600 million to operate and has so far heard
only four cases, two of them for contempt of court about news reports with
information about confidential witnesses.
Ayyash faces a separate case at the tribunal over three other deadly
attacks on Lebanese politicians in 2004 and 2005.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0857 hrs