The Special Tribunal for Lebanon on Thursday announced that it had indicted Hassan Merhi for the assassination of former Premier Rafiq Hariri, raising the number of people charged for the massive 2005 Beirut car bombing to 5.
The indictment—which was filed in on June 5, 2013 but not made public until Thursday—charged Merhi with one count of “conspiracy aimed at committing a terrorist act” and four other counts of being an accomplice to the killing.
The STL said in a statement that Merhi coordinated with the other alleged conspirators to prepare the false claim of responsibility issued following Hariri’s murder and was also involved with efforts to coordinate the attack.
The unsealed indictment further added that Merhi is a “Hezbollah supporter.”
According to the STL, Merhi was born on December 12, 1965 and was a resident of the Bourj al-Barajneh area in Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh suburbs.
Following the February 14, 2005 bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others, Al-Jazeera ran a tape on behalf of a fictional Islamist terror group claiming responsibility for the attack.
In June 2011 the UN-backed court four Hezbollah members—Mustafa Badreddine, 52, Salim Ayyash, 49, Hussein Anaissi, 39, and Assad Sabra, 36—for Hariri’s murder.
The tribunal has set a provisional January 2014 start date for the blockbuster trial.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/lebanonnews/stl-indicts-new-suspect-in-hariri-slaying
