On Mar. 1, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) was launched in The Hague. It’s purpose is to try the suspected killers of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s former prime minister, who died in 2005 from a car bomb blast that claimed the lives of 22 others. The STL will also investigate the defendants’ alleged involvement in a string of bombings in Lebanon that left 55 dead and 420 wounded.

The STL has an initial, renewable mandate of three years, and its registrar, Robin Vincent, believes it may take as long as five years before any suspect is brought before a judge. At this early stage, four Lebanese generals are in the line of fire: former head of the presidential guard Mustafa Hamdan, security services director Jamil al-Sayyed, domestic security chief Ali Hajj and military intelligence chief Raymond Azar. The four have been held for nearly four years on suspicion of premeditated murder, attempted premeditated murder and carrying out terrorist acts. But they haven’t been indicted.
The aura of secrecy that has characterized the case for the past four years hasn’t dissipated with the STL’s formation. Because of security concerns, the identities of the tribunal’s 11 judges (including four Lebanese) remain secret. The identities of potential witnesses and suspects haven’t been revealed either. The prosecutor is a Canadian judge named Daniel Bellemare. He currently heads the International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC), which was established in 2005 by the UN, and he “has kept his cards very close to his chest,” Vincent said at the opening ceremony. “It is important that he does that for confidentiality.”
Bellemare confirmed at the inauguration that there would be more than one indictment, saying that the crime was committed “by several individuals, while other people were aware of it.” He also insisted that no one would be “immune” from punishment, and declared during an interview with Al-Arabiya that, “the generals will not be held in custody indefinitely. They will stand trial one day. … There are other suspects in the crime in addition to the four generals.”
Bellemare adamantly repeated that “investigations are still incomplete,” suggesting that official indictments would only be issued based on incriminating evidence, and that he “will not issue an indictment unless fully convinced with the evidence presented.”
Who’s accused. The four generals facing trial were arrested along with five other men, based on evidence gathered from the early investigations of German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, former head of the IIIC. But the generals have consistently denied the charges. Their lawyers argue that their detention is “illegal” and “unfounded,” claiming that there is no proof against them, and that their clients are being held on false testimony that was later retracted.
Sayyed filed a lawsuit before the French courts in August 2008, against Mehlis for “distorting the investigation and calling false witnesses.” He also declared by the end of February that he hadn’t been interrogated by the IIIC for the past three years. Sayyed even said in a 2008 statement that Lebanon’s president at the time, Emile Lahoud, hadn’t “followed the steps of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who approved the investigations of the IIIC with Syrian generals and preserved their rights and dignity. … Assad refused to hand his generals to his political enemies as La-houd did with Lebanese generals.”

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