Hezbollah suspects' lawyers claim UN tribunal on Hariri's death is illegal

Last effort to thwart trial of quartet in 2005 killing of Lebanese prime minister

LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Lawyers for four Hezbollah members charged in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said Monday the international court set up to try them was illegally established and does not have jurisdiction.

The arguments at an appeals hearing are likely to be the last chance for the suspects’ lawyers to halt their trial in absentia at the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is tentatively scheduled to begin next March.

Hariri, once one of Lebanon’s most powerful Sunni leaders, was killed along with 22 others by a truck bomb on Feb. 14, 2005. The Shiite militia Hezbollah denies involvement in Hariri’s killing and has refused to extradite the suspects.

Defense lawyer Antoine Korkmaz said the UN overstepped its powers when it created the tribunal in 2006.

Korkmaz argued that the United Nations Security Council can only set up such a court to counter a threat to international peace, as it did when it established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The council “egregiously misused the powers conferred upon it by the (UN) charter,” he argued. “There was no threat against international peace justifying creation of the STL.”

He said the notorious assassination was “a political killing and in no way an international crime.”

The appeals hearing follows a ruling made by the court’s judges in July that they do have jurisdiction in Hariri’s assassination and that the tribunal was set up legally.

The tribunal was established under an agreement between the UN and Lebanon.

It is housed in the Netherlands because, in part, of security fears had it been based in Beirut.

Uniquely among international courts, the Lebanon tribunal’s rules allow for the suspects to be tried in their absence if they cannot be arrested. The tribunal has no police force of its own, and must rely on Lebanon or another state to act on the arrest warrants it issued in June last year.