UN tribunal finds Hezbollah activist guilty of Hariri’s assassination

Leidschendam, Netherlands: A UN-backed tribunal on Tuesday found a member of the Hezbollah Shiite movement guilty over the 2005 murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri but cleared three other suspects after a years-long trial.

The long-awaited decision prompted mixed reactions, with the late Hariri´s son Saad telling journalists outside the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) he "accepted the tribunal´s verdict." Salim Ayyash, 56, was convicted in absentia by the STL based in the Netherlands, over a huge suicide bombing in Beirut that killed the Sunni billionaire politician and 21 other people.

"The trial chamber finds Mr Ayyash guilty beyond reasonable doubt as a co-perpetrator of the assassination of Rafic Hariri," said David Re, presiding judge of the tribunal. Addressing victims of the attack, he said: "We sincerely hope the verdict today will give you some sort of closure." But judges said there was not enough evidence to convict Assad Sabra, 43, Hussein Oneissi, 46, and Hassan Habib Merhi, 54, over the blast, which changed the face of the Middle East.

The judges also said there was no evidence to directly link Syria -- the former military overlord in Lebanon -- or Hezbollah´s leadership to the attack. Sentencing for Ayyash will be decided at a later date. He faces life imprisonment if he is ever brought before the court.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has refused to hand over the four defendants and rejected the court´s legitimacy. Judges said there was sufficient evidence to show that Ayyash was at the centre of a network of mobile phone users who scoped out Hariri´s movements for months before his assassination. A still-unidentified suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden Mitsubishi truck blew himself up as Hariri´s motorcade passed on the Beirut waterfront on Valentine´s Day in 2005.

Prosecutors had said Ayyash was a ringleader of the group, while Oneissi and Sabra allegedly sent a fake video to the Al-Jazeera news channel claiming responsibility on behalf of a made-up group. Merhi was accused of general involvement in the plot. The judges said evidence also linked phones used in the attack to Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine -- who was indicted by the court but is believed to have been killed in the Damascus area in May 2016.

The Hariri bombing triggered mass protests that drove Syrian forces out of Lebanon after three decades. But the court said there was not enough evidence to tie Damascus to the crime.