Beirut, Lebanon – Years after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a large billboard was erected at a major crossroads in Beirut. It carried the smiling image of Hariri, contrasted against a black background, and the words “time for justice” in large, white letters.
A ticker above the top right corner of the billboard counted the days for justice. By last year, it stopped working. Then, at a time in winter that no one in the area seems to remember, the billboard itself disappeared.
On Tuesday, the verdict in the trial of four people accused of the murder of Hariri will finally be handed down by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) – an international court based in The Hague, in the Netherlands – more than 15 years after ‘ t he was killed in a massive car bombing on 14 February 2005, along with 21 others.
Four members of Iran’s supportive militia and political party Hezbollah are accused of organizing and carrying out the attack, although Hezbollah itself is not formally accused.
At that time, large swaths of Lebanon’s people were blamed for the killings in Syria, and huge protests sparked a chain of events that led to Syrian troops withdrawing to Lebanon after 40 years in the country. .
Since its inception in 2007, the STL has been demonized by the pro-Syria camp in Lebanon, especially Hezbollah, who have said it is a conspiracy against them. Others see it as the only way to achieve justice in a country with a weak, politically exposed judiciary.
But Lebanon today has a different set of problems than it did 15 years ago. The verdict will be announced to a people falling free in an endless downward spiral of economic collapse, political crisis, coronavirus outbreak, and an explosion that killed more than 170 people and injured 6,000, and doubled the attack. the former prime minister assassinated.
There are some parallels: Many, including local and international organizations and the families of some of the victims, have called for an international inquiry into the blast, citing their lack of confidence in Lebanese authorities.
The pro-Syria camp, represented by President Michel Aoun and Hezbollah, has rejected those calls, saying they have no confidence in international justice.
In the run-up to the sentencing, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his brother Baha, two of Rafik’s sons, have appointed supporters to exercise restraint. Yet it will undoubtedly add to painful tensions and anger against the strongest political forces in the country – Hezbollah and its allies.
“The condemnation will add fuel to the growing anti-Hezbollah sentiment in Lebanon,” Hilal Khashan, a veteran professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera. “No one believes for a second that four unjustified members of this highly disciplined group carried out this attack on their own motion.”
The process
The assassination of Hariri has been internationalized from the outset, due to the scale of the attack and Hariri’s larger-than-Lebanon ties with world leaders including Jaques Chirac, the French president at the time.
A UN investigation began just weeks after the explosion, before the STL formally took over in 2009.
On trial are Salim Ayyash, accused of overseeing preparations for the attack, as are Hussein Oneissi, Assad Sabra and Hassan Merhi. None of the suspects had ever been established, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced that they would never be, not even in “300 years”.
The case of the prosecution focuses heavily on a network of mobile phones that Hariri ran into in the months before his murder, before almost everyone went dark after it was carried out. The defense has argued that there are gaps in the evidence and it is in the best of circumstances.
The UN investigation initially focused on Syrian involvement, and four top generals were detained for four years until the STL was released in 2009, saying they were arbitrarily detained.
Investigations then turned to focusing on Hezbollah members.
Question about legitimacy
MP Jamil Sayyed, a former head of public security who was detained by one of the generals for four years at random, told Al Jazeera that the investigation into the murder of Hariri was a “dirty political game” from the beginning.
“The goal, even before the investigation began, was to show that Syria and its allies killed Hariri, and then they sought the evidence to support those claims, instead of the legal procedure for investigation, which led to conclusions. comes through facts and evidence and true witnesses, “he said.
But Peter Haynes, the leading legal representative for the victims in the case, told Al Jazeera the process “simply identified criminal behavior in the same way that many international investigations do, and I do not think it is in any way illegitimate. is “.
Haynes cites the time lost since the crime as the main problem in the trial, but said it is not a “futile exercise” for the roughly 70 people he represents.
“From the perspective of the victims, it reaches justice because it sets a historical record – even if they would like the conviction to be years out and the accused sitting on the dock,” he said.
The front board of defense did not respond to a request for comment.
Public ‘not convinced’
Even if victims can find some conclusion, “Lebanese public opinion is generally unconvincing,” said Karim Emile Bitar, director of the Institute of Political Science at Lebanon’s University of Saint Joseph, Al Jazeera.
“Most people you talk to, even die-hard supporters of Rafik Hariri, do not believe this is really justice, because it’s been 15 years, because there have been so many shifting alliances in the last 15 years. “because Hariri’s son, Saad, reconciled with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2009.”
Bitar said Lebanon had witnessed an average of one murder per year since independence in 1943, whether it was top politicians, leading journalists or investigators.
The Hariri trial was important in trying to hold people responsible for such a murder for the first time, he said. But “delaying justice has denied justice”.
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