Hariri assassination trial opens at The Hague

The trial in absentia of four Hezbollah members accused of murdering former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 has begun at a UN-backed court.Nine years after the huge Beirut car bombing killed billionaire Hariri, leading to the exit of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and three years into Syria’s own bloody civil war, prosecutors opened their case in a suburb outside The Hague.

The February 14, 2005 seafront blast killed 22 people including Damascus opponent Hariri and wounded 226, leading to the establishment by the UN Security Council of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in 2007.

Although the attack was initially blamed on pro-Syrian Lebanese generals, the court in 2011 issued arrest warrants against Mustafa Badreddine, 52, Salim Ayyash, 50, Hussein Oneissi, 39, and Assad Sabra, 37, all members of the Syrian-backed Shia movement Hezbollah. A fifth suspect, Hassan Habib Merhi, 48, was indicted last year and his case may yet be joined to the current trial.

Al Jazeera correspondent James Bays, reporting from The Hague, said there was a large scale model of the seafront where the attack took place.

He also said the judge wanted the court to assume that the defendants were present and that they had pleaded not-guilty. The tribunal is unique in international justice as it was set up to try the perpetrators of an attack and because it can try the suspects in absentia.

The four suspects have been charged with nine counts, ranging from conspiracy to commit a terrorist act to homicide and attempted homicide.

Chief prosecutor Norman Farrell said in his indictment that Badreddine and Ayyash “kept Hariri under surveillance” before the Valentine’s Day suicide bombing, while Oneissi and Sabra allegedly issued a false claim of responsibility to mislead investigators.

On Wednesday, in his opening remarks, Farrell told the court: “No-one in Lebanon can fail to be affected directly or indirectly by the attack that took place.

“The attack captured the attention of the world. Its effects reveberating long after the explosion subsided. The people of Lebanon have the right to have this trial.” — AFP