By Ian Black, Middle East editor
Nothing special can be seen outside an anonymous modern office block in Leidschendam, a residential suburb of The Hague, though patrolling police vehicles and discreet security cameras are reminders that until recently it was the headquarters of the Dutch secret services.
Behind its shuttered windows preparations are accelerating for a sensational trial that lies at the heart of tensions in the Middle East, and which seems certain to inflame them further: the steel and concrete building is to house the international tribunal that will try those accused of assassinating Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, three years ago in Beirut.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, is expected to announce soon that the tribunal is finally ready to start work. "The aim is to send a political and legal message that criminals will not escape punishment," he declared. Underlining the quickening pace, Daniel Bellemare, who is leading the UN investigation into the murder, is to submit a report to the security council today.
The controversy over the tribunal will also cast a long shadow over the Arab summit in Syria this weekend.
Eleven Lebanese and foreign judges have already been selected (though their names have not been announced for security reasons). Plans to equip the Leidschendam building with a courtroom and cells are being drawn up. Funds for the first year have been raised and Ban is seeking money for two more years.
The tribunal process is "irreversible", insists Nicolas Michel, the UN's chief legal counsel. "We have a prosecutor, we have judges, we have a registrar, we have a budget, we have a building and we have an investigation going on," he said. "There is no way it can be halted."
This is not the first time that the Netherlands, promoting The Hague as the legal capital of the world, has agreed to host a high-profile international court. The city already provides the base of the world court, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal (where Slobodan Milosevic stood trial), and the international criminal court. To the south is Camp Zeist, home away from home of the Scottish court that tried the two Libyans charged with blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie - a crime with some striking legal and political resonance for the Hariri murder.
The case to be heard at Leidschendam is unprecedented: the result of the security council bypassing Lebanon's political deadlock to seek the truth behind the killing of Hariri and the 22 others in the massive and meticulously planned bomb attack on his motorcade on Valentine's Day 2005.
The first UN report on the case, compiled by the German judge Detlev Mehlis, found "probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate Hariri could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials, and could not have been ... organised without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services". The names of two close aides of Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, were mentioned in a draft document.
Four Lebanese generals known for their Syrian sympathies were arrested for conspiracy to murder and remain in detention. Syria has always strenuously denied any involvement in the killings.
Stung by the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon after the "cedar revolution" triggered by Hariri's killing, Assad sees a not-so-hidden US-led agenda to isolate him. "We have some concerns about the politics of the tribunal," said a Syrian official, "but we are cooperating fully."
Lebanon has been paralysed politically since Syria's allies, led by the Shia organisation Hizbullah, quit the Beirut government when it voted to establish the tribunal: one consequence is that the Lebanese presidency has been vacant for months and Fuad Siniora, the western-backed Sunni prime minister, will not attend the weekend Arab summit. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are also demonstratively staying away.
Evidence gathered so far suggests that a young, male suicide bomber, probably non-Lebanese, detonated 1,800kg of explosives inside a van. No one attaches any credibility to the videotaped "confession" of a Palestinian claiming responsibility for the assassination on behalf of a previously unknown jihadist outfit.
Investigators are also looking at 19 other cases of political murder and links to the Hariri killing.
"The perpetrators had, and still have, advanced and extensive operational capacities available in Beirut," Mehlis's successor, the Belgian Serge Brammertz, reported last November. Bellemare, a Canadian former deputy attorney general, is expected to wrap up his work by the end of the year, further adding to the nervousness in Damascus. His big moment will come when he issues indictments. "That's when the shit will really hit the fan," said one UN source.
It is also at that point that the Hariri tribunal may face what has been called the "Lockerbie scenario", mirroring the situation when two Libyan intelligence officers were indicted for the 1988 bombing. Colonel Muammar Gadafy refused to surrender them for trial and only did so after years of UN sanctions and a discreet deal spelling out that the trial was of two individuals - not the regime they worked for.
Lebanon is more likely than Syria to hand over any suspects.
"It's a puzzle," observed Augustus Norton, a Middle East expert at Boston University. "I can't see the Syrians agreeing to give anyone up for trial - or at least anyone senior."
Officials could claim immunity, though any who do "are unlikely to be successful in making a claim that assassination can be regarded as an official act," said the former Foreign Office legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst.
Handily, there is a provision for trial in absentia. Special arrangements are being made to protect any witnesses who come to Leidschendam.
"There is huge concern bordering on panic in Damascus," said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Foundation's office in Beirut. "There is a sense that Syria is drifting into a very serious problem without having thought through how to deal with it."
Observers predict the tribunal may launch proceedings in late summer or autumn and adjourn until after the US presidential election - the source, as ever, of hope for change in the Middle East. "It's very hard to predict what will happen," said a UN official. "It depends who is indicted and at what level. Maybe the Syrians are waiting for the first indictment, or a new American president. They tried to stop the tribunal but misjudged. I'm not sure that they have fully internalised it - but they have lost."
· This article was amended on Monday March 31 2008. The international tribunal trying those accused of assassinating Rafik Hariri will be held in Leidschendam, rather than Leichendamm. This has been corrected.
Behind its shuttered windows preparations are accelerating for a sensational trial that lies at the heart of tensions in the Middle East, and which seems certain to inflame them further: the steel and concrete building is to house the international tribunal that will try those accused of assassinating Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, three years ago in Beirut.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, is expected to announce soon that the tribunal is finally ready to start work. "The aim is to send a political and legal message that criminals will not escape punishment," he declared. Underlining the quickening pace, Daniel Bellemare, who is leading the UN investigation into the murder, is to submit a report to the security council today.
The controversy over the tribunal will also cast a long shadow over the Arab summit in Syria this weekend.
Eleven Lebanese and foreign judges have already been selected (though their names have not been announced for security reasons). Plans to equip the Leidschendam building with a courtroom and cells are being drawn up. Funds for the first year have been raised and Ban is seeking money for two more years.
The tribunal process is "irreversible", insists Nicolas Michel, the UN's chief legal counsel. "We have a prosecutor, we have judges, we have a registrar, we have a budget, we have a building and we have an investigation going on," he said. "There is no way it can be halted."
This is not the first time that the Netherlands, promoting The Hague as the legal capital of the world, has agreed to host a high-profile international court. The city already provides the base of the world court, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal (where Slobodan Milosevic stood trial), and the international criminal court. To the south is Camp Zeist, home away from home of the Scottish court that tried the two Libyans charged with blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie - a crime with some striking legal and political resonance for the Hariri murder.
The case to be heard at Leidschendam is unprecedented: the result of the security council bypassing Lebanon's political deadlock to seek the truth behind the killing of Hariri and the 22 others in the massive and meticulously planned bomb attack on his motorcade on Valentine's Day 2005.
The first UN report on the case, compiled by the German judge Detlev Mehlis, found "probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate Hariri could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials, and could not have been ... organised without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services". The names of two close aides of Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, were mentioned in a draft document.
Four Lebanese generals known for their Syrian sympathies were arrested for conspiracy to murder and remain in detention. Syria has always strenuously denied any involvement in the killings.
Stung by the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon after the "cedar revolution" triggered by Hariri's killing, Assad sees a not-so-hidden US-led agenda to isolate him. "We have some concerns about the politics of the tribunal," said a Syrian official, "but we are cooperating fully."
Lebanon has been paralysed politically since Syria's allies, led by the Shia organisation Hizbullah, quit the Beirut government when it voted to establish the tribunal: one consequence is that the Lebanese presidency has been vacant for months and Fuad Siniora, the western-backed Sunni prime minister, will not attend the weekend Arab summit. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are also demonstratively staying away.
Evidence gathered so far suggests that a young, male suicide bomber, probably non-Lebanese, detonated 1,800kg of explosives inside a van. No one attaches any credibility to the videotaped "confession" of a Palestinian claiming responsibility for the assassination on behalf of a previously unknown jihadist outfit.
Investigators are also looking at 19 other cases of political murder and links to the Hariri killing.
"The perpetrators had, and still have, advanced and extensive operational capacities available in Beirut," Mehlis's successor, the Belgian Serge Brammertz, reported last November. Bellemare, a Canadian former deputy attorney general, is expected to wrap up his work by the end of the year, further adding to the nervousness in Damascus. His big moment will come when he issues indictments. "That's when the shit will really hit the fan," said one UN source.
It is also at that point that the Hariri tribunal may face what has been called the "Lockerbie scenario", mirroring the situation when two Libyan intelligence officers were indicted for the 1988 bombing. Colonel Muammar Gadafy refused to surrender them for trial and only did so after years of UN sanctions and a discreet deal spelling out that the trial was of two individuals - not the regime they worked for.
Lebanon is more likely than Syria to hand over any suspects.
"It's a puzzle," observed Augustus Norton, a Middle East expert at Boston University. "I can't see the Syrians agreeing to give anyone up for trial - or at least anyone senior."
Officials could claim immunity, though any who do "are unlikely to be successful in making a claim that assassination can be regarded as an official act," said the former Foreign Office legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst.
Handily, there is a provision for trial in absentia. Special arrangements are being made to protect any witnesses who come to Leidschendam.
"There is huge concern bordering on panic in Damascus," said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Foundation's office in Beirut. "There is a sense that Syria is drifting into a very serious problem without having thought through how to deal with it."
Observers predict the tribunal may launch proceedings in late summer or autumn and adjourn until after the US presidential election - the source, as ever, of hope for change in the Middle East. "It's very hard to predict what will happen," said a UN official. "It depends who is indicted and at what level. Maybe the Syrians are waiting for the first indictment, or a new American president. They tried to stop the tribunal but misjudged. I'm not sure that they have fully internalised it - but they have lost."
· This article was amended on Monday March 31 2008. The international tribunal trying those accused of assassinating Rafik Hariri will be held in Leidschendam, rather than Leichendamm. This has been corrected.
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