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Security Tight For Lebanon Tribunal

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The New York Times

Published: March 2, 2009

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The memory of how a former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, died appears to have sobered those seeking to prosecute his assassins.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which began proceedings Sunday in a suburb near The Hague, has planted an impressive arsenal of security devices, with an extra focus on forestalling car bombs.

Hariri and 22 others were killed when a white van exploded near his motorcade in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Feb. 14, 2005.

The court's mandate is to try those deemed responsible for that attack, a politically inflammable issue because it is widely believed 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 task for the tribunal, set up by the U.N. Security Council, will be to judge whether the prosecutor has enough evidence for indictments.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, prosecutor Daniel Bellemare said he will continue his investigations without political interference and said he will call "as soon as possible" for Lebanese authorities to turn over four pro-Syrian generals who are suspects in the case.

Bellemare, a Canadian, said he could issue several indictments as a result of his wide-ranging investigation into the suicide bombing, but he would not say when.

"I will submit an indictment when I am satisfied personally and professionally that I have enough evidence," he told reporters packed into a gymnasium that is to be transformed this year into the tribunal's high-security courtroom.

The generals led Lebanon's police, intelligence service and an elite army unit at the time of the assassination. They are the only suspects in custody, though they have not been formally charged.

In recent days, three other suspects in the case, two Lebanese and a Syrian, were released from custody by a Lebanese judge. Lawyers in The Hague said they did not know if others were in custody.

Bellemare, who called the new court the world's "first international anti-terrorist tribunal," said that so far in the four-year investigation, Syrian cooperation has been "satisfactory," but he did not elaborate.

He declined to comment on what he would do if Syria failed to cooperate.

The court was set up by the U.N. Security Council in 2007 and comprises seven foreign and four Lebanese judges who have yet to take office. It is funded by Lebanon and U.N. member states and based in the Netherlands to ensure the safety of staff and an impartial trial.

It will use Lebanese law, but unlike Lebanese courts cannot impose the death penalty. Unusually for an international tribunal, it can hold trials in absentia.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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