The United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) sentenced a suspected member of Hezbollah to life imprisonment on Friday 11 December for taking part in the 2005 assassination of the former president of the Lebanese Council of Ministers Rafic Hariri and 21 others. Tried in absentia, Salim Ayyash, 57, was convicted on August 18 for his role in the suicide bombing that killed 22 and injured 226.
“Mr. Ayyash participated in an act of terrorism which caused a massacre”Judge David Re told Leidschendam, the Netherlands, TSL on Friday. Its role was “Determining in the success of the attack”, he added, before continuing:
“The seriousness of the crimes is such that they require the maximum penalty. The offenses are of such seriousness that very few circumstances can be considered as mitigating factors that could reduce the appropriate sentence. “
Salim Ayyash is still at large, Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah, refusing to hand him over, as are three other defendants who were eventually acquitted. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon has issued an international arrest warrant for Salim Ayyash.
“The most serious terrorist attack to have taken place on Lebanese soil”
During a hearing in November, prosecutors ruled that life was the “Only fair and proportional condemnation” for Salim Ayyash, considering that it was “The most serious terrorist attack to have taken place on Lebanese soil”. They also demanded the seizure of his property.
Rafic Hariri was Prime Minister of Lebanon before his resignation in October 2004. The Lebanese statesman was killed on February 14, 2005 in Beirut when a suicide bomber detonated a van filled with explosives as the accompanying convoy passed by. his armored car.
“Besides the harm suffered by the direct and indirect victims, this shocking terrorist attack also inflicted a form of collective harm on the Lebanese people”, said the court on Friday. “Lebanon is a parliamentary democracy. Politicians and leaders should be removed from office at the ballot box and not by bullets or bombs in a terrorist attack ”, added the judges.
Not enough evidence to convict the other defendants
In their judgment in August, the judges ruled that there was sufficient evidence to determine that Salim Ayyash was at the heart of a network of mobile phone users spying on Rafic Hariri’s actions in the months preceding. his assassination.
There was, however, not enough evidence to convict the other defendants, Assad Sabra, Hussein Oneissi and Hassan Habib Merhi, magistrates said. According to the judges, there is also no evidence of a link between the attack and the leadership of the Hezbollah movement or its allies in Damascus.
In 2007, the United Nations Security Council agreed to create the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in Leidschendam, presenting it as the first international tribunal whose objective is to investigate crimes “Terrorists”.
Salim Ayyash is the subject of another trial in the same tribunal, relating to three other deadly attacks against Lebanese politicians in 2004 and 2005.
