The UN-backed special court investigating Hariri's murder
published the 47-page indictment against four members of Hezbollah for alleged
involvement in the deadly truck bombing that killed Hariri in 2005.
The publication comes after the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
said last week that Lebanese authorities had been unable to arrest the four
suspects or serve them with their indictments. Hezbollah has denied involvement
and said it will never turn over the suspects. Still, the suspects could be
tried in absentia.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the son of the late
leader, urged Hezbollah's leader to hand over the suspects and cooperate with
the tribunal. "What the Hezbollah leadership is asked to do is simply to
declare cutting links between it and the accused. This will be a historic
stance that all Arabs and Lebanese will remember," he said in a statement
released by his office.
The indictment says the assassins tracked Hariri's movements
over several weeks to establish the routes and movements of his convoy and the
location of his vehicle. On the day of the murder, they detonated some 2,500
kilograms of explosives packed into a Mitsubishi van parked near a hotel on a
coastal road.
The blast killed Hariri, eight members of his convoy and 13
passers-by along with the suicide bomber, a man whose identity has not been
established. It wounded 231 people.
Prosecutors acknowledge in the indictment's preamble that
they have no direct evidence linking the suspects to the attack. The file
relies to a large extent on circumstantial evidence "which works logically
by inference and deduction," the indictment said.
Tribunal prosecutor Daniel Bellemare, however, said:
"The full story will only unfold in the courtroom, where an open, public,
fair and transparent trial will render a final verdict."
