By Kareem Shaheen
BEIRUT: Judges at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will decide Monday whether to uphold the January start date of the long-awaited trial of four Hezbollah members for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The Hague-based court is set to debate whether prosecution and defense lawyers are prepared for trial and if Lebanon is cooperating in a pretrial hearing at 3 p.m.
The tribunal is tasked with investigating the Feb. 14, 2005, attack that killed the former prime minister and 21 others and plunged Lebanon into years of political turmoil.
Five Hezbollah members were indicted by the court for complicity in the attack, and four of them will stand trial on Jan. 13, the tentative date for the start of proceedings.
Hezbollah has refused to hand over any of the suspects, and condemned the court as a Western plot to undermine the resistance.
The STL relies on a mix of international and Lebanese law, which allows trials in absentia.
The trial chamber will address whether it is possible to join the case of Hasan Merhi, the fifth suspect indicted this summer, with the main case which involves Mustafa Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah commander, and three party members.
The court will also decide whether to confirm the trial date, which may fall on the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday – a national holiday in Lebanon.
Defense counsel are also likely to raise objections over what they say is Lebanon’s refusal to cooperate with their investigations.
The agreement establishing the STL was passed under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which compels Lebanon to comply with court orders.
The prosecution will also lay out the order in which it will call witnesses in the first part of trial, which will focus on what happened before, during and right after the bombing.
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02/12/2013
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