BEIRUT: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon listened Tuesday for a second day to the testimony of Khaled Toubaili, among the first firefighters to reach the blast site of the Valentine’s Day bombing in Beirut that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Toubaili recounted the efforts of some 70 firefighters who battled to extinguish blazing cars at the site of the explosion.
It took nearly two hours for firefighters to put out the fires, Toubaili said, and several more to cool down the smoldering scene.
The court looked at several photographs taken soon after the attack that killed Hariri outside the St. Georges hotel in 2005. Several photos depicted the crater left after the blast.
Although several members of the court asked Toubaili about the crater, he said his attention was focused elsewhere.
"I did not care about the crater. I was only interested at the time in the fire and the injured people," he told the court.
"The crater did not include any cars on fire or any inured people."
Toubaili’s testimony Monday about shattered windows a significant distance from the blast site could be important evidence for the Prosecution’s theory that an explosives-laden van led to the killing of Hariri as opposed to an underground bomb detonation, a theory that the defense has posited.
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28/01/2014
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