Presiding Judge David Re of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague on Tuesday ruled there was no evidence to suggest Hezbollah or Syria were involved in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005 by a suicide truck that carried 4,000 lbs of explosives in Beirut. Four Hezbollah members – Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hassan Habib Merhi, Hussein Hassan Oneissi, and Assad Hassan Sabra – were indicted for the assassination and were tried in absentia by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
Reuters reported Tuesday that as the hours-long reading of the verdict got underway (2,600 pages with about 13,000 footnotes), the judges said they were “satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt” that Ayyash possessed “one of six mobiles used by the assassination team,” and are yet to rule on his guilt or innocence on the charges of a terrorist attack and a homicide.
However, the panel was adamant in stating there was no evidence to suggest the leadership of Hezbollah or of the Syrian government was involved in the attack. 21 died in the assassination alongside Hariri.
It should be noted that neither Hezbollah nor Syria were under indictment before the special tribunal, only the four named Hezbollah members. But the court nevertheless went out of its way to clear the terrorist organization and the most murderous country on the planet of responsibility for this act.
Rafic Baha El Deen Al Hariri was a Lebanese business tycoon and the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation in October 2004. He was accused of taking an active role in the corruption that plagued Lebanon under the Syrian occupation. He reportedly increased his wealth from less than $1 billion when he became prime minister in 1992, to more than $16 billion when he died.
Alas, you can’t take it with you.
Hezbollah accused Israel of Hariri’s assassination, suggesting the Mossad used it as a pretext for expelling the Syrian army from Lebanon. In August 2010, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah presented evidence, consisting of intercepted Israeli spy-drone video footage, which he said implicated Israel in the assassination. In October 2010, Hezbollah demanded that the Lebanese government stop all cooperation with the Special Tribunal in The Hague, and in November 2010, Al Akhbar reported that Hezbollah had planned a quick takeover of Lebanon should the terror group be found responsible for the assassination by the Special Tribunal. Also, according to leaked US embassy cables, Syria “desperately” wanted to stop the Special Tribunal’s investigation.
Turns out Hezbollah and the Syrians didn’t know they were innocent all along…