Lebanon braces for STL indictment

The U.N.-backed court probing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is poised to release its indictment within a matter of days, sources told The Daily Star Monday. A source familiar with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said that while the court had been expected to provide Lebanese authorities with an indictment Monday, there had been a short delay and its release was imminent. A spokesperson for the tribunal said that the indictment was being worked upon and would be issued independent from events in Lebanon, whose government is still trying to work out how to deal with the STL in its forthcoming policy statement. “The STL has no comment to make about the content of the indictment. The mandate of the STL is of a judicial nature,” the spokesperson said. “The integrity of the STL proceedings requires that legal considerations alone determine if and when the tribunal will make any announcement about the completion of the review process.” A judicial source told The Daily Star that the indictment was set to publicly name individuals accused of murdering Hariri. “The indictment will definitely be public: it will be announced in The Hague before it even reaches Lebanon, unless the STL requested from Lebanese authorities the arrest of some individuals secretly,” the source said. State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza met at the Grand Serail Monday with the Secretary General of the Lebanese Premiership Suheil Bouji, to inform him of the procedures the government should take once the indictment lands. Mirza’s arrival at the Serail during a ministerial committee meeting concerning the drafting of Cabinet’s policy statement aroused speculation that an indictment had been received, although this later proved premature. At the Serail, Minister of State for Administrative Reform Mohammad Fneish suggested that the indictment’s released would precede the policy statement. “It seems that the tribunal [indictment] is coming to us first,” he said. Conflicting reports emerged Monday over the exact timing of the indictment, which has been altered twice by STL Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare since he initially presented the document to Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen in January. Pan Arab dailies Ash-Sharq al-Awsat and Al-Hayat ran reports Monday on the looming indictment submission, reporting that it was due in the next couple of days. Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, citing well-informed sources, said that the indictment would name five Hezbollah members, an assertion the court refused to be drawn on. The STL has polarized opinion in Lebanon since its inception in 2009. Last week, Minister of State Salim Karam told The Daily Star that no mention would be made of the court in the new Cabinet’s policy statement, although Lebanon agreed with the U.N. back in 2007 to cooperate with the tribunal, including putting up its share of the running costs. Al-Hayat wrote that Lebanese tribunal judges and staff had left Beirut ahead of the indictment as a precautionary measure. However, the judicial source said the departure was unrelated to the indictment and that staff were summoned to The Hague concerning “requests related to [former general] Jamil al-Sayyed.” Sayyed was one of four pro-Syrian generals arrested in the immediate aftermath of Hariri’s assassination. He was held for four years, without charge, until Bellemare ordered the men’s release upon taking charge of the tribunal. Sayyed maintains that his detention was illegal and politically motivated and has commenced proceedings with the court, which ruled that the ex-general was allowed to see tribunal documents relating to him. “The STL has decided to meet in The Hague to prepare a formal response to Sayyed’s complaints,” the source added. Former statesman Hariri was killed in a huge car bomb blast on Feb. 14, 2005, an act that prompted popular demonstrations leading to Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon after nearly three decades of military tutelage. Twenty-two others died in the attack. From Daily Star