Thursday, August 18, 2011

Hezbollah implicated in Hariri Assassination


From NYT, August 17, 2011, by NADA BAKRI:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister in 2005 released the full indictment Wednesday against members of Hezbollah named in the killing, a move that could exacerbate tensions in a country polarized by the repercussions of the investigation.
... many in Lebanon have feared that details of the indictment — how the assassination was actually carried out on a seaside corniche in the capital — would deepen divisions here.

...The tribunal’s prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, said in a statement that unsealing the 47-page indictment “answers many questions.”

...The tribunal delivered indictments on June 30 against four men that Hezbollah has acknowledged as members of the organization. ...The most prominent of the four members is Moustapha Badreddine, a brother-in-law of Imad Moughnieh, a shadowy Hezbollah commander killed in 2007 and blamed for some of the group’s most spectacular acts of violence. Among them was the 1983 bombing of the United States Marines barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 American service members.

The former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, was killed along with 22 others when his motorcade was bombed. A Sunni Muslim, he was admired by supporters for helping rebuild Lebanon, especially Beirut, after its 15-year civil war ended in 1990...

... Anxiety is even more pronounced [than usual, in Lebanon] these days, as Lebanese worry that the five-month uprising in Syria could spill over into their country. A series of mysterious blasts this month in the capital — some characterized by Hezbollah as accidents — have amplified unease.

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