Lebanon is dying, its sovereignty now symbolic. It is the name on the mailbox, but Syria and Iran run the house, via Hizballah. More on this story. “Lebanon denies report it knows location of Hariri killers,” from the Jerusalem Post, August 20:
Lebanese state prosecutor Saeed Mirza on Saturday denied reports made by one of the Hezbollah members indicted for the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri that the government in Beirut knows his location but is unable to arrest him, Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star reported.
“The Lebanese authorities know where I live, and if they wanted to arrest me they would have done it a long time ago. Simply, they cannot,” said one of the of the accused assassins of the former Lebanese prime minister.
One of the Hezbollah members accused accused of killing Hariri gave an exclusive interview to Time Magazine on Thursday in which he blamed Israel for the assassination, which took place in Beirut on February 15, 2005. He said that he would never turn himself in, nor would Hezbollah ever let him or his comrades go to trial.
In the interview, the militant, who refused to allow his name to be published despite proving his identity to the Time Magazine reporter, accused the Mossad of assassinating Hariri and forging evidence against him and his organization. He also said that the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) had no teeth and that even though the Lebanese government knew where he lived and worked they would not be able to arrest him because Hezbollah would not let them.
The STL released a detailed indictment on August 17 in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Four suspects, Mustafa Amine Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah figure and brother-in-law of slain Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyeh, Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra were named and their methods of operation were detailed in the report….
The tribunal now also says three other assassinations may be connected.