Trial of men suspected of killing Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri begins

The trial of four Hezbollah fighters suspected of plotting the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has begun. The UN-backed court in the Netherlands is trying the suspects in absentia.

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The trial began Thursday almost nine years after a bomb attack killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others.

The four men suspected of plotting the sectarian attack are being tried in absentia as the the Islamic militant Hezbollah movement, which denies responsibility for the attack, has refused to turn them in.

The trial is being held at the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), located in Leidschendam, on the outskirts of The Hague. The tribunal was set up specifically to investigate the killings.

Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, also a former prime minister, Deputy House Speaker Farid Makari, and several parliamentarians were present at the opening session.

Saad Hariri told members of the families of the other victims, also present at the trial, that "the opening of the tribunal is a historic day as it opens a new page for justice in Lebanon."

On February 14, 2005 a Mitsubishi van laden with 2.5 tons of explosives was detonated as Hariri's motorcade drove by in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The assassination, one of the most dramatic in the Middle East's modern history, fuelled sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and was a catalyst for the country's Cedar Revolution. This eventually led to Syrian troops withdrawing from Lebanon after a military presence of almost three decades.

hc/pfd (Reuters, AFP) DW