On 12:56 p.m on Valentine's Day 2005, Rafik Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, was blown up, along with most of his armored convoy, in front of the Hotel St. Georges in Beirut. The bomb had been packed into a white Mitsubishi van that had been moved into position by a suicide driver just one minute and fifty seconds before Hariri's six-car convoy arrived. The powerful explosion tore a 7 foot deep crater into the street and killed twenty-three people.
The bombing caused an international uproar that has yet to be resolved--and the aftermath of the murders and the five-year quest to discover the culprits and bring them to justice is a sobering tale of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of dealing with state-sponsored terrorism when the concerned states, in this case Syria and Iran (via the military wing of Hezbollah it sponsors) who have the means to manipulate the evidence. A un organized special tribunal on Lebanon has announced it will indictments in 2010, even though Hezbollah has warned that they could set off a civil war. So the legal process is hostage of the political realities of Lebanon.
The sophisticated technology used in the bomb and surveillance of his convoy suggested that it might involve the intelligence services of one or more states. Because Syria had extensive military and intelligence presence in Lebanon,, the Lebanese government turned to the UN for help. The UN Security Council appointed Detlev Mehlis, a German judge renowned for his pursuit of terrorist bombings, to head its investigation.
On the surface, a number of clues pointed to a Jihadist suicide bomber. Similar Mitsubishi vans had been used in a spate of other Beirut bombings blamed on Islam terrorists. Elements in the bomb traced back military explosives used by Al-Qaeda of Iraq. And a conveniently video tape sent to Al Jazeera television showed a lone suicide bomber named Abu Addas claiming that he acted on behalf of unknown Jihadist group.
But the crack UN investigative team, which included forensic experts in explosives, DNA, and telecommunications from 10 countries, found convincing evidence that the assassination was a state-sponsored operation cleverly disguised with decoys, planted evidence and false flag recruitments as the work of Islam Jihadists. The Mitsubishi van had been stolen in Japan, shipped via the port of Dubai to the Syrian- controlled Bekka Valley where it was modified to carry the bomb, and then, only days before the assassination, was driven over a military-controlled highway to Beirut.
One participant in the planning if the attack, who subsequently confessed to his role, told investigators that the putative suicidist, Abu Addas, was a mere decoy who had been induced to go to Syria, make the bogus video, and then was killed. He further alleged that the actual van driver had been recruited under a false flag in Iraq, so presumably if he defected or capture he would wrong identify his recruiters as Jihadists. He also said the "special explosives" in the TNT had been intentionally planted there to mislead investigators in the direction of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the UN team uncovered evidence that the actual conspirators had resources and capabilities, including wire-tapping Hariri's phones, that pointed to an intelligence services. Its telecommunications analysts determined that eight new telephone numbers and 10 mobile telephones had been used, as well as the wire-tapping, to follow Hariri's movements with split-second precision and move the van into place. In addition, a former Syrian intelligence agent told them that he had driven a Syrian military officer on a reconnaissance mission past the St. George Hotel on the day before the bombing and had been told that four Lebanese generals, in collaboration with General Rustam Ghazali, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, had provided "money, telephones, cars, walkie-talkies, pagers, weapons, and ID cards" for the operation. Judge Mehlis, concluded "there is probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security official and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services." And he had the four Lebanese generals arrested.
When he moved to question Syrian officials, including intelligence chief,Assef Shawkat (who is the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in law), the Syrians "stonewalled" the investigation, and protested the direction of Judge Mehlis' inquest. In January 2006, the Security Council replaced Judge Mehlis with Serge Brammertz, a 43 year old Belgian lawyer who had served as deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Mr. Brammertz focused the investigation on the political context of the murder but made so little progress in advancing the criminal case that when he was replaced in 2008 by Daniel Bellemare, Canada's assistant deputy attorney general, the charges against the four imprisoned Lebanese generals was dropped because of the "complete absence of reliable proof against them."
The UN investigation, under pressure from Syria and its allies, also turned in a new direction: Hezbollah, the Shiite party backed by Iran. By this time, Lebanese investigators, re-examining 2005 cell phone records, had uncovered a network of about 20 mobile phones that had been all activated just a few weeks before the attack and then silenced just after the attack. This so-called second ring of phone had been calling the same phone numbers as the eight phones that actually coordinated the attack.
According to a report in Der Spiegel, the investigators then traced the second ring of phones back to a command post of Hezbollah's military wing under the notorious Imad Mughniyeh (who had been responsible for other spectacular bombing attacks, including the US Embassy. Unfortunately, before the cell phone evidence could be further unraveled, the Lebanese chief investigator working on this complex network was killed in Beirut in 2009 and Mughniyeh, who might otherwise might have been called as a witness, was himself was assassinated. But finally, this April UN investigators summoned 12 Hezbollah members and close supporters for questioning, spurring rumors that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which the UN set up in March 2008, was on the verge of finally issuing indictments.
In Lebanon, a country with a frozen but not ended civil war, judicial facts gave way to political interests.. Hezbollah's powerful chief Hassan Nasrallah said ominously that Hezbollah would not stand by idly if its members are accused of involvement in the assassination, denouncing what he called attempts to "politicize" the Tribunal, as if political consideration could be omitted from political crime. He then moved to discredit the UN tribunal by saying that its investigators come from “intelligence services closely linked to the Israeli Mossad,” and demanded the establishment of a Lebanese committee to investigate “false witnesses.” In September 2010, he went further, claiming that Hezbollah had “evidence” that Israel was behind the assassination. Meanwhile, Syria, which retained the military means to dominate Lebanon, also claimed to be the victim of planted evidence. Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, who became Lebanon’s premier in 2008, had accused Syria’s leaders of assassinating his father on the basis of the massive evidence uncovered in the UN investigation. But now, after a meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad, suddenly reversed his position, in September 2010, saying that he had been wrong to blame Syria for the assassination.
The half-decade "wait" may turn out to be just the prelude, if the agents of Syria and/or Iran are named in this act of terrorism. Since Hezbollah and Syria possess the power to destroy Lebanon, any such Tribunal, no matter how impressive the evidence, will most likely be impeached and, as Hezbollah has already proposed, the blame will be shifted to their convenient Bete Noire: Israel.
The bombing caused an international uproar that has yet to be resolved--and the aftermath of the murders and the five-year quest to discover the culprits and bring them to justice is a sobering tale of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of dealing with state-sponsored terrorism when the concerned states, in this case Syria and Iran (via the military wing of Hezbollah it sponsors) who have the means to manipulate the evidence. A un organized special tribunal on Lebanon has announced it will indictments in 2010, even though Hezbollah has warned that they could set off a civil war. So the legal process is hostage of the political realities of Lebanon.
The sophisticated technology used in the bomb and surveillance of his convoy suggested that it might involve the intelligence services of one or more states. Because Syria had extensive military and intelligence presence in Lebanon,, the Lebanese government turned to the UN for help. The UN Security Council appointed Detlev Mehlis, a German judge renowned for his pursuit of terrorist bombings, to head its investigation.
On the surface, a number of clues pointed to a Jihadist suicide bomber. Similar Mitsubishi vans had been used in a spate of other Beirut bombings blamed on Islam terrorists. Elements in the bomb traced back military explosives used by Al-Qaeda of Iraq. And a conveniently video tape sent to Al Jazeera television showed a lone suicide bomber named Abu Addas claiming that he acted on behalf of unknown Jihadist group.
But the crack UN investigative team, which included forensic experts in explosives, DNA, and telecommunications from 10 countries, found convincing evidence that the assassination was a state-sponsored operation cleverly disguised with decoys, planted evidence and false flag recruitments as the work of Islam Jihadists. The Mitsubishi van had been stolen in Japan, shipped via the port of Dubai to the Syrian- controlled Bekka Valley where it was modified to carry the bomb, and then, only days before the assassination, was driven over a military-controlled highway to Beirut.
One participant in the planning if the attack, who subsequently confessed to his role, told investigators that the putative suicidist, Abu Addas, was a mere decoy who had been induced to go to Syria, make the bogus video, and then was killed. He further alleged that the actual van driver had been recruited under a false flag in Iraq, so presumably if he defected or capture he would wrong identify his recruiters as Jihadists. He also said the "special explosives" in the TNT had been intentionally planted there to mislead investigators in the direction of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the UN team uncovered evidence that the actual conspirators had resources and capabilities, including wire-tapping Hariri's phones, that pointed to an intelligence services. Its telecommunications analysts determined that eight new telephone numbers and 10 mobile telephones had been used, as well as the wire-tapping, to follow Hariri's movements with split-second precision and move the van into place. In addition, a former Syrian intelligence agent told them that he had driven a Syrian military officer on a reconnaissance mission past the St. George Hotel on the day before the bombing and had been told that four Lebanese generals, in collaboration with General Rustam Ghazali, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, had provided "money, telephones, cars, walkie-talkies, pagers, weapons, and ID cards" for the operation. Judge Mehlis, concluded "there is probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security official and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services." And he had the four Lebanese generals arrested.
When he moved to question Syrian officials, including intelligence chief,Assef Shawkat (who is the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in law), the Syrians "stonewalled" the investigation, and protested the direction of Judge Mehlis' inquest. In January 2006, the Security Council replaced Judge Mehlis with Serge Brammertz, a 43 year old Belgian lawyer who had served as deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Mr. Brammertz focused the investigation on the political context of the murder but made so little progress in advancing the criminal case that when he was replaced in 2008 by Daniel Bellemare, Canada's assistant deputy attorney general, the charges against the four imprisoned Lebanese generals was dropped because of the "complete absence of reliable proof against them."
The UN investigation, under pressure from Syria and its allies, also turned in a new direction: Hezbollah, the Shiite party backed by Iran. By this time, Lebanese investigators, re-examining 2005 cell phone records, had uncovered a network of about 20 mobile phones that had been all activated just a few weeks before the attack and then silenced just after the attack. This so-called second ring of phone had been calling the same phone numbers as the eight phones that actually coordinated the attack.
According to a report in Der Spiegel, the investigators then traced the second ring of phones back to a command post of Hezbollah's military wing under the notorious Imad Mughniyeh (who had been responsible for other spectacular bombing attacks, including the US Embassy. Unfortunately, before the cell phone evidence could be further unraveled, the Lebanese chief investigator working on this complex network was killed in Beirut in 2009 and Mughniyeh, who might otherwise might have been called as a witness, was himself was assassinated. But finally, this April UN investigators summoned 12 Hezbollah members and close supporters for questioning, spurring rumors that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which the UN set up in March 2008, was on the verge of finally issuing indictments.
In Lebanon, a country with a frozen but not ended civil war, judicial facts gave way to political interests.. Hezbollah's powerful chief Hassan Nasrallah said ominously that Hezbollah would not stand by idly if its members are accused of involvement in the assassination, denouncing what he called attempts to "politicize" the Tribunal, as if political consideration could be omitted from political crime. He then moved to discredit the UN tribunal by saying that its investigators come from “intelligence services closely linked to the Israeli Mossad,” and demanded the establishment of a Lebanese committee to investigate “false witnesses.” In September 2010, he went further, claiming that Hezbollah had “evidence” that Israel was behind the assassination. Meanwhile, Syria, which retained the military means to dominate Lebanon, also claimed to be the victim of planted evidence. Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, who became Lebanon’s premier in 2008, had accused Syria’s leaders of assassinating his father on the basis of the massive evidence uncovered in the UN investigation. But now, after a meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad, suddenly reversed his position, in September 2010, saying that he had been wrong to blame Syria for the assassination.
The half-decade "wait" may turn out to be just the prelude, if the agents of Syria and/or Iran are named in this act of terrorism. Since Hezbollah and Syria possess the power to destroy Lebanon, any such Tribunal, no matter how impressive the evidence, will most likely be impeached and, as Hezbollah has already proposed, the blame will be shifted to their convenient Bete Noire: Israel.
