March 1, 2009 - International Herald Tribune - Tribunal opens in killing of Lebanese prime minister

By MARLISE SIMONS

THE HAGUE:
A new international criminal court convened here Sunday with a mandate of identifying and prosecuting those responsible for the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon and 22 others in a van explosion in Beirut in 2005.
The chief prosecutor of the tribunal, Daniel Bellemare of Canada, said he would soon ask Lebanon to transfer suspects and evidence and would continue his own investigations.
"As soon as I think I have enough evidence against someone or a group of persons, I will present an indictment," he said Sunday.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was set up by the United Nations Security Council because it was thought that political conditions in Lebanon did not make it possible for the government to carry out an independent inquiry leading to trials.
The case has been dominated by the perception that Syria ordered the assassination. Hariri had been a leading opponent of Syria's political control over his country. Protests after his killing forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon after nearly three decades.
The first investigator, the German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, said the planners included high-level Lebanese and Syrian officials, among them members of the inner circle of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Mehlis's successors, Serge Brammertz from Belgium and Bellemare, have been far more cryptic.
Syria has denied any involvement.
The existence of a tribunal, operating outside Lebanon for security reasons, is expected to put pressure on Lebanese and Syrian officials to cooperate. As other international courts have shown, the threat of international arrest warrants can serve as sharp political tools. Some diplomats fear that if an investigation reached the top of the Syrian government, this could interfere with the thaw in relations between Damascus and the West.
Eleven judges, four of them Lebanese, sit on the tribunal, which means that the benches of both the trial chamber and the appeals chamber have non-Lebanese majorities.
Lawyers familiar with the court said the tribunal would start its work with a review of the cases against four Lebanese generals imprisoned in Beirut since August 2005 on suspicion of murder and terrorist acts. The four men were detained at the request of Mehlis but were never formally charged.
"This is a violation of UN standards, and the prosecutor now has two months to request all the evidence and ask for the transfer of the suspects," one lawyer said. "The judges will determine if he brings credible charges, or else they will release the detainees."
In recent days, three other suspects in the case, two Lebanese and a Syrian, were released by a Lebanese judge. Lawyers in The Hague said they did not know if others were in custody.
"We keep hearing different numbers; all of this has been surrounded by secrecy," another lawyer said. "Hopefully the tribunal can clarify all this."
The lawyers requested anonymity because of the court's rules.
The four generals, cited in Mehlis's reports as the top Lebanese security officials with close ties to Syria, are Raymond Azar, former chief of military intelligence; Ali Hajj, former chief of the Lebanese police; Jamil al-Sayyed, former director of internal security; and Mustafa Hamdan, former commander of the presidential guard.
Bellemare, the tribunal prosecutor, has disclosed little in his latest report except to say he has new evidence leading to other suspects. Any trial will follow Lebanese law for the crimes of terrorism and murder. But the UN-backed tribunal, unlike Lebanon, does not allow for the death penalty.
Lebanon will pay for 49 percent of the tribunal's budget, set at $51 million this year; other donors include France and the United States, which originally pressed for the UN inquiry. Other major donors are Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands, which all have seats on the court's management committee.
The tribunal can investigate attacks in Lebanon between October 2004 and December 2005.
On a recent visit to the tribunal, Robin Vincent, the court administrator, stopped at the center of the building.
"This is an ideal space to convert into a future courtroom," he said. Until then, a temporary courtroom will be used.
The tribunal has a three-year frame, but Vincent, a veteran of international courts like those in Sierra Leone and Cambodia, said the premises would be available for six years. "Experience," he said, "has shown that no tribunal has finished its work in just a couple of years."