UN-BACKED COURT SENTENCES 2 HEZBOLLAH MEN TO LIFE FOR KILLING OF EX-LEBANESE PREMIER HARIRI

Thu 16 June 2022:

On Thursday, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon sentenced two individuals to life in prison for the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

The international tribunal located in Leidschendam, near The Hague, found the two alleged members of the Shiite Hezbollah movement guilty of the terrorist act that killed a total of 22 people at the time.

The sentence was given in their absence since the defendants, Hassan Habib Merhi and Hussein Hassan Oneissi, are fugitives.

Salim Jamil Ayyash

Hussein Hassan Oneissi

The court found Merhi and Oneissi distributed a video in which a fictitious group claimed responsibility for the attack, in a bid to protect the “real perpetrators” from a covert network in the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.

But the pair are unlikely to ever spend time behind bars as Hezbollah has refused to hand them over, as it has refused to surrender a third man, Salim Ayyash, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2020.

Presiding judge Ivana Hrdlickova said both Merhi and Oneissi were aware that Hariri would be killed in the attack, adding that the sentences reflected the “evil nature of terrorism”.

Assad Hassan Sabra

Hassan Habib Merhi

“The appeals chamber therefore unanimously decides to sentence Mr Merhi and Mr Oneissi to life imprisonment, the heaviest sentence under the statute and the rules for each of the five counts on which they were convicted,” she said.

In February 2005, Hariri was slain by a suicide bomber.

Twenty-one other people were killed and 226 injured in the attack. Witnesses compared the explosion to an earthquake.

The attack prompted international outrage as well as horror in Lebanon. Syria was suspected to be responsible for the attack.

Merhi and Oneissi were acquitted in the first instance. In March, however, the special court overturned this verdict on appeal. The judges announced the sentence on Thursday. The special tribunal had been moved to the Netherlands for security reasons.

At the end of 2020, Lebanese citizen Salim Jamil Ayyash was sentenced to life imprisonment as the main mastermind of the attack.

It is considered unlikely that the three men will ever serve their sentences.

Hezbollah, which is associated with all three perpetrators, has so far refused to extradite them. Hezbollah is allied with Syria and Iran.