Credit: britannica.com /   Rafic al-Hariri former prime minister of Lebanon

By Gary Raynaldo       DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

A United Nations-backed tribunal in the Netherlands Tuesday found no evidence Hezbollah or Syria were involved in the 2005 truck bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri .  However, the UN tribunal found one of four men accused of killing a former Lebanese prime minister in Beirut guilty.  Salim Ayyash and the others, all from the Shia militant group Hezbollah, had been on trial in absentia since 2014. The tribunal acquitted the three other defendants. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, also referred to as the Lebanon Tribunal or the Hariri Tribunal, is a tribunal based in the  Netherlands of international character applying Lebanese criminal law to carry out the investigation.  The trial began in January 2014 and included 415 days of hearings, during which time evidence was heard from 297 witnesses. It cost approximately $1 billion (€840,000). Presiding Judge David Re of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said that in the months before his death, Hariri supported reducing the influence of Syria in Lebanon and that of Hezbollah in Syria.  Re explained the judges who studied volumes of evidence in the trial of four Hezbollah members accused of involvement in the bombing were “of the view that Syria and Hezbollah may have had motives to eliminate Hariri and some of his political allies.”  But the judge said it was determined that there was no evidence that “Hezbollah leadership had any involvement in Mr. Hariri’s murder, and there is no direct evidence of Syrian involvement in it.”  Immediately after Hariri’s assassination, general suspicion fell on Syria and Hezbollah — which denies involvement.   (Read The Judgment Here) 

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, also referred to as the Lebanon Tribunal or the Hariri Tribunal, is a tribunal based in the  Netherlands .

Rafik Hariri  Supporters  Say Justice Not Served 

“Most people you speak to, even die-hard supporters of Rafik Hariri, do not believe that this is really justice because it’s been 15 years, because there were so many shifting alliances in the past 15 years, because Hariri’s son, [former Prime Minister Saad Hariri], himself in 2009 reconciled with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,”

-Saint Joseph University’s Karim Emile Bitar tells Al Jazeera.

“The tragedy in Beirut—the result of decades of systemic negligence. and lack of accountability—made clear that a new government, parliamentary elections, and new political parties will not be enough to save Lebanon. The Lebanese must rid themselves of the corrupt sectarian leaders and parties that have dominated the country for decades,”

-Mohamad Bazzi writes in Foreign Affairs.

The verdict was scheduled for Aug. 7, but was postponed after a massive chemical explosion in the port of Beirut that killed more than 170 people, injured some 6,000 and destroyed a large part of the city.