STL Trial of 4 Hizbullah Members Kicks Off
The in absentia trial of four Hizbullah members accused of murdering former Premier Rafik Hariri in February 2005 opened at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague on Thursday.
The February 14, 2005 seafront blast killed 22 people including Hariri and wounded 226, leading to the establishment by the U.N. Security Council of the STL in 2007.
Although the attack was initially blamed on four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals, the court in 2011 issued arrest warrants against Mustafa Badreddine, 52, Salim Ayyash, 50, Hussein Oneissi, 39, and Assad Sabra, 37, all members of Hizbullah.
The four suspects were indicted in 2011 with plotting the attack, but have not been arrested. A fifth, Hassan Habib Merhi, was charged late last year in the case and is also still at large.
Presiding Judge David Re said prosecutors will call hundreds of witnesses in a trial likely to take months.
"We will proceed as if the accused are present in the courtroom and have pleaded not guilty," Re told the STL.
"The onus is on the prosecutor to prove their guilt."
Hariri's son Saad was in the courtroom, at the back behind the victims' representative. His hands were folded as he listened attentively.
The STL said the trial will allow the Lebanese people to see evidence being presented and challenged, as well as witnesses testifying and being cross-examined in public.
"No one in Lebanon can fail to have been affected directly, or indirectly, by the attack in downtown Beirut that on 14 February 2005, killed Mr. Rafik Hariri," said Prosecutor Norman Farrell.
"The people of Lebanon have a right to this trial and to seek the truth," he said, showing the court a photograph taken shortly after the blast of smoke, flames and Hariri's vehicle on fire.
The photos included a smoldering, rubble-strewn crater around 12 meters across and the flaming wreckage of the truck.
He told judges attackers packed "an extraordinary quantity of high grade explosives" into a Mitsubishi truck to kill Hariri.
"The force of the blast was such that Mr. Hariri was thrown from his car and it's reasonable to conclude that he died quickly at the scene," said co-prosecutor Alexander Milne.
Milne said the blast created "a man-made hell."
He showed videos of the immediate aftermath and photos including one he said showed Hariri's body covered by a plaid blanket.
Senior Trial counsel Graeme Cameron then proceeded to analyze the telephone data and activity linked to Hariri's actions following his resignation from government on October 20, 2004 and until his assassination in 2005.
The indictment had revealed the existence of a number of telephone networks, which the Prosecution had color-coded, used by the accused.
Cameron explained how the networks of blue and yellow phones were active in monitoring the slain premier's activity, noting that they decreased when he was abroad and increased when he was present in the country.
The surveillance operations focused on Hariri's movement near the parliament building and his Qoreitem residence in Beirut and his Faqra residence outside of the capital.
They increased in activity in December 2004 and continued until the assassination.
Activity on all telephone networks ceased after the assassination.
Cameron also addressed the case of Abu Adas, who was used by the co-conspirators to be falsely accused in the assassination.
After a brief biography of the Abu Adas, Cameron spoke of how he became more devoted religiously and how, between December 2004 and January 2005, he met at a mosque in Beirut's Tariq al-Jadideh neighborhood a man identified as Mohammed.
Mohammed told Abu Adas that he was a Muslim, but he was raised Christian at an orphanage and he sought to learn Islam in order to marry a Muslim woman.
Analysis of the telephone networks used by the accused during this period should prove as evidence that Oneissi was indeed Mohammed, whom Abu Adas had met at the mosque, revealed Cameron.
The purple telephone network was linked to communication between the accused over Abu Adas.
The session was then adjourned with Cameron expected to resume on Friday morning the rest of his intervention.
The session will continue at 10:30 am Beirut time.
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