Rafik Hariri murder trial opens in The Hague
The Hague ( AsiaNews / Agencies) - Today the international trial against four people accused of murdering Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 begins in the Dutch capital. The four will be tried in absentia, having long since disappeared.
Hariri
was killed on February 14, 2005 by a massive bomb placed on the road he was
travelling along in his car. 22
other people perished with him.
Hariri,
a Sunni, very close to Saudi Arabia, had sewn the reconciliation among the
Lebanese factions, leading to the Taif Agreement (1989) and the country's reconstruction
after the civil war. His
death sparked a series of anti-Syrian demonstrations - Damascus was suspected
of being behind the killing - so much so that 30 thousand troops of the Syrian
army in Lebanon since 1976 , were expelled.
The Hariri assassination sparked
a political re-awakening in Lebanon and the fight against terrorism, in an
alliance between Sunnis and Christians. In
2006, the UN launched a Special Tribunal for Lebanon to investigate the murder,
much hampered by Syria.
In
2011 Mustafa Badreddine , 52; Salim Ayyash, 50, Hussein Oneissi, 39 and Assad
Sabra, 37 were charged with is murder. All
of them, and especially Badreddine have had links with Hezbollah. The
evidence of their crime is based largely on analysis of telephone conversations
held among them.
Hezbollah leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, has always denied any involvement by his organization and has
accused the tribunal of being manipulated by an Israeli- American conspiracy . According
to Nasrallah, Israel followed Hariri's movements via satellite and penetrated
the telephone network to falsify data and blame the Shia Hezbollah .
The
trial, which began today, involves the deposition of
up to 500 witnesses and could take years. Among
the accused a fifth person has been added 48 year old Habib Hassan Merhi.
After
a lengthy and slow preparation, the trial opens at a very delicate moment for
Lebanon and Syria. The
Land of the Cedars has been unable to create a government for over a year
because of the resistance of Hezbollah and its allies. While
Syria awaits the start of the peace conference , after almost three years of
civil and regional war, attended by - as supporters of Bashar Assad - even
Hezbollah .
In
recent weeks, in Lebanon there have been several attacks and car bombs: against
a former minister , a friend of Hariri and against
diverse Hezbollah locations.
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