Traumatized Lebanon awaits Rafic Hariri murder verdict

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A man walks past a portrait of slain Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri on the ninth anniversary of his death on February 14, 2014. (AFP/File Photo)
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Updated 18 August 2020
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Traumatized Lebanon awaits Rafic Hariri murder verdict

  • The popular former prime minister died on Feb. 14, 2005, in a massive explosion in the heart of Beirut
  • The tribunal was set up in 2007 under a UN Security Council resolution owing to deep divisions in Lebanon

BEIRUT: A special tribunal created by the UN to investigate the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri over 15 years ago is set to deliver its long-awaited verdict in the Netherlands today.

Hariri was murdered on Feb. 14, 2005, when a bomber detonated a van next to his armored convoy in Beirut’s St. George area. The attack killed 21 other civilians, including legislator Bassel Fleihan, and injured 226.

The assassination triggered massive public demonstrations, leading to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and an end to Damascus’ 30-year security and political guardianship of the country.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) will deliver its verdict in Leidschendam, near the Hague, two weeks after explosions at the Port of Beirut left 178 people dead and another 6,000 injured.

The UN set up the STL in February 2006 at the request of the Lebanese government, making it the first international court in modern history to try those accused of political assassination.

Four people who allegedly led the deadly attack — Salim Jamil Ayyash, 56; Assad Hassan Sabra, 43; Hussein Hassan Onaisi, 46; and Hassan Habib Merhi, 54 — went on trial on Jan. 16, 2014, at the STL First Instance Court.

The court overturned proceedings against Mustafa Amin Badr Al-Din, the suspected mastermind believed to have died in Damascus in May 2016. However, the chamber’s decision did not rule out continuing his case if, in the future, evidence emerged that he was still alive.

The four defendants, who are still in hiding, were tried in absentia. While the pleading sessions ended in 2018, the judgment was delayed to 2020 because of the thousands of pages of documents under review and coronavirus-related restrictions.

STL spokesperson Wajed Ramadan told Arab News from the Hague: “The tribunal requested the names of those affected from their legal representatives, in compliance with coronavirus-prevention measures adopted by the Netherlands and the STL.”

The session is expected to be broadcast live on all Lebanese television stations as well as Arab and foreign outlets. The proceedings will also be updated through the court’s website in Arabic, English and French, and through its YouTube channel in Arabic.

“Thirty journalists from the Lebanese, Arab and foreign media have been granted accreditation to cover the session,” Ramadan said.

Former prime minister Saad Hariri, son of Rafic Hariri, was scheduled to attend.




A heart-shaped red roses bouquet adorns the grave of former Lebenese prime minister Rafiq Hariri (portrait), on the ninth anniversary of his death, in Beirut on February 14, 2014. (AFP/File Photo)

“Hope in international justice was never lost and the truth shall be revealed. Aug. 7 will be retribution day for the assassins,” Saad Hariri said in a statement to supporters of his Future Movement party, before the Beirut blast prompted the verdict’s postponement.

Ayyash, Merhi, Onaisi and Sabra are accused of taking part in a conspiracy with the aim of committing a terrorist act. Ayyash is also charged with committing a terrorist act by using an explosive device, intentionally killing Rafic Hariri with explosives, deliberately killing 21 others using explosives and attempting to intentionally kill another 226 people with explosives.

Merhi, Onaisi, and Sabra are accused of being accomplices in each of the four crimes of which Ayyash is accused.

The prosecution relied on phone logs to prove the defendants monitored Rafic Hariri and his movements, that they were present at the scene of the assassination and that they forged Ahmed Abu Adass’ false declaration about committing the crime via recorded tape.

The prosecution presented the investigation findings and the political background and motives, including a much-publicized threat by Syrian President Bashar Assad to kill Hariri if he did not agree to extend the mandate of the Lebanese president at the time, Emile Lahoud.

The attack took place five months after the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559 in September 2004, calling for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

The prosecution’s final memorandum quoted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as saying in a public speech that the four defendants were “brothers in the resistance,” claiming it proved their affiliation to Hezbollah.

It also cited heightened surveillance by Ayyash during Rafic Hariri’s meeting with Nasrallah in 2004 in Haret Hreik, although the meeting had been kept confidential.

The prosecution also stated that Syrian military and intelligence officer Rustum Ghazaleh had increased contact with Hezbollah official Wafik Safa and went on visits to Haret Hreik as the Syrian conflict with Hariri intensified.

The full ruling is expected to be between 500 to 1,000 pages, Ramadan said. Judges of the First Instance Court, headed by David Re, will read a summary of the charges against each defendant and the respective verdicts.

“The Registrar of the Chamber, Daryl Mundis, will hand over a certified copy of the verdict to the Lebanese authorities,” Ramadan told Arab News.

“This is a trial in absentia and the Lebanese authorities will be required to notify the accused according to the applicable Lebanese laws, whether it is a verdict of their innocence or their conviction, in preparation for the arrest of those convicted by the Lebanese authorities.”

The defense will have 30 days to appeal.




A Lebanese man walks past a billboard that shows a picture of assassinated Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in downtown Beirut, on February 14, 2011, as Lebanon commemorates on Valentine's Day, the sixth anniversary of his death in a car bombing in Beirut. (AFP/File Photo)

The judges heard testimony from 307 witnesses, 269 of whom were from the prosecution.

A total of 119 witnesses either testified before the STL or from Beirut through a televised conference system. The legal representatives of those affected provided evidence from 31 witnesses.

Hezbollah has refused to recognize the STL from the outset. Nasrallah accused it of being “politicized and serving the interests of Israel and the United States.”

He has also refused to extradite the accused, whom he described as “saints,” warning against “playing with fire with its rulings to ignite an inner conflict.”

Before he stepped down as prime minister amid outrage over the Beirut blast, Hassan Diab had pledged to abide by the decisions of the STL and to pay the financial dues it owes. He had urged people to avoid “fishing in troubled waters” and said the authorities “must be ready to deal with the fallout” of the judgment.

The involvement of Iran-backed groups in assassinations and kidnappings in Lebanon has never been a secret. Before the official inception of Hezbollah in 1985, groups such as the Lebanese Islamic Jihad, the Wheat of the Earth Organization, the Organization for the Defense of Free People and the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for terrorism that was aimed at cementing the authority of the Syrian regime and its Lebanese allies.

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TWITTER POLL: Majority believes Hezbollah will be convicted of 2005 Hariri assassination

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Bombings in 1983 against US and French troops and the US embassy marked the beginning of a 37-year wave of terrorism in Lebanon. Between 1982 and 1992, 104 foreigners were taken hostage in Lebanon, mostly Americans and Europeans.

William Francis Buckley, the former head of the CIA’s Beirut office, was kidnapped by the Islamic Jihad in March 1984 and declared dead in October 1985. His remains were found in a plastic bag on the side of a Beirut road in 1991.

American Peter Kilburn and Britons Leigh Douglas and Philip Padfield, employees of the American University of Beirut, were kidnapped in April 1986 and their bodies discovered days later near the city. An organization calling itself the Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims claimed it executed the three men in retaliation for American air strikes on Libya that month.

Michel Seurat, a French sociologist, was kidnapped in February 1986 and later declared executed by the Islamic Jihad. His body was found in October 2005.

While the perpetrators of many of these violent terrorist acts remained mostly unidentified, suspicion inevitably fell on Hezbollah.

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Twitter: @najiahoussari


Amnesty urges Syria to probe sectarian massacres as war crimes

Updated 12 sec ago
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Amnesty urges Syria to probe sectarian massacres as war crimes

Many from Assad’s Alawite minority have feared reprisals for his brutal rule
The massacres “must be investigated as war crimes,” Amnesty said in a statement

BEIRUT: Rights group Amnesty International on Thursday called on the Syrian government to ensure accountability for sectarian massacres targeting the Alawite minority last month, saying they may constitute war crimes.
Several days of violence starting on March 6 saw the worst sectarian bloodshed since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime president Bashar Assad, with massacres largely in the Alawite coastal heartland.
Many from Assad’s Alawite minority have feared reprisals for his brutal rule.
Amnesty said that “the Syrian government must ensure that the perpetrators of a wave of mass killings targeting Alawite civilians in coastal areas are held accountable.”
The massacres “must be investigated as war crimes,” it said in a statement.
Truth, justice and reparation are “crucial to ending cycles of atrocities,” it added.
The United Nations human rights office has said that “perpetrators raided houses, asking residents whether they were Alawite or Sunni before proceeding to either kill or spare them accordingly,” with men shot dead in front of their families.
Online footage, which AFP was unable to independently verify, showed men in military garb shooting people at close range.
Amnesty’s secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, said: “Once again, Syrian civilians have found themselves bearing the heaviest cost as parties to the conflict seek to settle scores.”
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those behind the “bloodshed of civilians” and has set up a fact-finding committee, which has yet to announce its results.
Amnesty said authorities must “ensure independent, effective investigations of these unlawful killings and other war crimes.”
The Syrian authorities have accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking the new security forces.
Callamard said evidence indicated that “government affiliated militias deliberately targeted” Alawite civilians “in gruesome reprisal attacks,” with people killed “in cold blood.”
“For two days, authorities failed to intervene to stop the killings,” she said.
The violence has sent more than 21,000 fleeing to neighboring Lebanon, the UN has said, with thousands more seeking refuge at a Russian air base on the Mediterranean coast.
Amnesty said the Syrian government must “take immediate steps to ensure that no person or group is targeted on the basis of their sect.”

Israel steps up Syria strikes, says Turkiye aims for ‘protectorate’

Updated 03 April 2025
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Israel steps up Syria strikes, says Turkiye aims for ‘protectorate’

  • The Israeli army said its forces killed several militants who opened fire on Israeli troops
  • Reflecting Israeli concerns about Turkish influence in the new Syria, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of playing a “negative role” there

DAMASCUS/JERUSALEM: Israel stepped up airstrikes on the Syrian Arab Republic overnight, declaring the attacks a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus as it accused their Turkish allies on Thursday of trying to turn the country into a Turkish protectorate.
The strikes, targeting air bases, a site near Damascus and the southwest, put renewed focus on Israeli concerns about the Islamists who deposed Bashar Assad in December, with Israeli officials viewing them as a rising threat at their border.
The Israeli army, which seized ground in the southwest after Assad was toppled, said its forces killed several militants who opened fire on Israeli troops operating in that area overnight. Syria’s state news agency SANA said that Israeli shelling had killed nine people in the area.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the airstrikes late on Wednesday evening were “a clear message and a warning for the future — we will not allow the security of the State of Israel to be harmed.”
Katz said in a statement that Israel’s armed forces would remain in buffer zones within Syria and act against threats to its security, warning Syria’s government it would pay a heavy price if it allowed forces hostile to Israel to enter.
Reflecting Israeli concerns about Turkish influence in the new Syria, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of playing a “negative role” there, in Lebanon and other regions.
“They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that is their intention,” he told a press conference in Paris.
The Syrian foreign ministry said the Israeli strikes were an unjustified escalation aimed at destablising the country, calling on the international community to put pressure on Israel to “stop its aggression.”
Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting the foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war.

AIR BASE DESTROYED
The strikes late on Wednesday night were some of the most intensive Israeli attacks in Syria since Assad was toppled.
The Syrian foreign ministry said Israel struck five separate areas within a 30-minute window, resulting in the near-complete destruction of the Hama air base and wounding dozens of civilians and soldiers.
The Israeli military said it had struck remaining military capabilities at air bases in Hama and Homs provinces, in addition to remaining military infrastructure in the Damascus area, where Syrian media and officials said the vicinity of a scientific research facility was hit.
In Hama, a Syrian military source told Reuters a dozen strikes demolished the runways, tower, arms depots and hangars at the military airport. “Israel has completely destroyed Hama air base to ensure it is not used,” the source said.
Israel also said on Wednesday it targeted the T4 air base in Homs province, which it has repeatedly hit over the past week.
In the incident in southwestern Syria, the Israeli military said its forces were operating in the Tasil area, “confiscating weapons and destroying terrorist infrastructure” when several militants fired on them.
“The forces responded with fire and eliminated several armed terrorists from the ground and air,” the Israeli military said, adding there were no casualties among Israeli forces.
“The presence of weapons in southern Syria constitutes a threat to the State of Israel,” it said. “The IDF will not allow a military threat to exist in Syria and will act against it.”


Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight leaves more than 50 Palestinians dead

Updated 03 April 2025
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Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight leaves more than 50 Palestinians dead

  • The Israeli military ordered the residents of several areas — Shujaiya, Jadida, Turkomen and eastern Zeytoun — to evacuate on Thursday
  • Israel has imposed a month-long halt on all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle

DEIR AL BALAH: Overnight strikes by Israel killed at least 55 people across the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said Thursday, a day after senior government officials said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and establish a new security corridor across the Palestinian territory.
Israel has vowed to escalate the nearly 18-month war with Hamas until the militant group returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory. Israel has imposed a month-long halt on all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle.
Officials in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the strip, said the bodies of 14 people had been taken to Nasser Hospital – nine of them from the same family. The dead included five children and four women. The bodies of another 19 people, including five children aged between 1 and 7 years and a pregnant woman, were taken to the European hospital near Khan Younis, hospital officials said. In Gaza City, 21 bodies were taken to Ahli hospital, including those of seven children.
The Israeli military ordered the residents of several areas — Shujaiya, Jadida, Turkomen and eastern Zeytoun — to evacuate on Thursday, adding that the army “will work with extreme force in your area.” It said people should move to shelters west of Gaza City.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel was establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.
Netanyahu referred to the new axis as the Morag corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis, suggesting it would run between the two southern cities. He said it would be “a second Philadelphi corridor ” referring to the Gaza side of the border with Egypt further south, which has been under Israeli control since last May.
Israel has reasserted control over the Netzarim corridor, also named for a former settlement, that cuts off the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow coastal strip. Both of the existing corridors run from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea.
“We are cutting up the strip, and we are increasing the pressure step by step, so that they will give us our hostages,” Netanyahu said.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority, led by rivals of Hamas, expressed its “complete rejection” of the planned corridor. Its statement also called for Hamas to give up power in Gaza, where the militant group has faced rare protests recently.
Netanyahu’s announcement came after the defense minister, Israel Katz, said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones, apparently referring to an existing buffer zone along Gaza’s entire perimeter. He called on Gaza residents to “expel Hamas and return all the hostages,” saying “this is the only way to end the war.”
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli pullout. The group has rejected demands that it lay down its arms or leave the territory.
Netanyahu visits Hungary
Netanyahu arrived in Hungary early Thursday on his second foreign trip since the world’s top war crimes court issued an arrest warrant against him in November over Israel’s war in Gaza.
Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the the International Criminal Court has said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas — charges that Israeli officials deny.
ICC member countries, such as Hungary, are required to arrest suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the court has no way to enforce that and relies on states to comply. As Netanyahu arrived in Budapest, Hungary said it will begin the procedure of withdrawing from the ICC.
Plans for Gaza
On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel plans to maintain overall security control of Gaza after the war and implement US President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle much of its population elsewhere through what the Israeli leader referred to as “voluntary emigration.”
Palestinians have rejected the plan, viewing it as expulsion from their homeland after Israel’s offensive left much of it uninhabitable, and human rights experts say implementing the plan would likely violate international law.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements and other deals. Israel rescued eight living hostages and has recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say whether those killed are civilians or combatants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and at its height displaced around 90 percent of the population.
Israeli strikes on Syria
Separately, Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in southwestern Syria, Syrian state media reported Thursday.
SANA said the nine were civilians, without giving details. Britain-based war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they were local gunmen from the Daraa province, frustrated with Israeli military encroachment and attacks in recent months.
Israel has seized parts of southwestern Syria and created a buffer-zone there, which it says is to secure Israel’s safety from armed groups. But critics say the military operation has created tensions in Syria and prevents any long-term stability and reconstruction for the war-torn country.
Israel also struck five cities in Syria late Wednesday, including over a dozen strikes near a strategic air base in the city of Hama.


Germany urges return to ‘serious’ talks on Gaza truce

Updated 03 April 2025
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Germany urges return to ‘serious’ talks on Gaza truce

  • Speaking alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Berlin, Scholz also called for more humanitarian aid for Gaza

Berlin: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Thursday for a return to “serious” negotiations to end the Gaza conflict as Israel pushed on with a renewed assault targeting Hamas in the territory.
“What is needed now is a return to the ceasefire and the release of all hostages,” Scholz said, urging a return to “serious negotiations with the aim of agreeing a post-war order for Gaza that protects Israel’s security.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the military was “dissecting” the Gaza Strip and seizing territory to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages still held in the enclave.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 before launching a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire.
At least 1,066 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations there, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Speaking alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Berlin, Scholz also called for more humanitarian aid for Gaza.
“No humanitarian aid has reached Gaza for a month,” he said. “This cannot and must not continue.”
He added that “a sustainable peace that stabilizes the situation in the West Bank as well as Gaza can only be achieved through a political solution.”
Abdullah II also called for a return to a ceasefire and for aid deliveries to resume into Gaza.
“Israel’s war on Gaza must stop. The ceasefire must be reinstated... and aid flow must resume,” he said.
“The humanitarian tragedy in Gaza has already reached unspeakable levels and action must be taken to immediately address it.”


UN rights chief says ‘appalled’ by reports of Khartoum executions

Updated 03 April 2025
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UN rights chief says ‘appalled’ by reports of Khartoum executions

GENEVA: UN rights chief Volker Turk said Thursday that he was “appalled” by reports of extrajudicial killings of civilians in Sudan’s capital Khartoum last week after its recapture by the army from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
“I am utterly appalled by the credible reports of numerous incidents of summary executions of civilians in several areas of Khartoum, on apparent suspicions that they were collaborating with the Rapid Support Forces,” Turk said in a statement.