Lebanon: Saad Hariri to head ‘March 14’ delegation to Special Tribunal

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri will be attending the opening session of the trial of the suspects allegedly involved in the assassination of his father, late premier Rafiq Hariri, in The Hague on Jan. 16.

Five men have been indicted for the murder of Hariri and 21 others in a bomb attack in Beirut on Valentine’s Day in 2005.

“Hariri will head a March 14 delegation to attend the opening session of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon,” radio Voice of Lebanon reported on Saturday afternoon.

The five suspects in the long-awaited trial described in the indictment as “supporters of Hezbollah,” supporters of Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and the court is trying them in absentia at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague.

In 2011, the court accused four men -- Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Hussein Oneissi and Assad Sabra – of being involved in the attack. A fifth Hezbollah supporter, Hassan Habib Merhi, was indicted in 2013.

The trial is due to begin on Thursday and Hezbollah denies any role in killing Hariri, a billionaire Sunni Muslim politician.

The blast which killed Hariri ripped through a busy street, wounding 226 other people and destroying a nearby hotel. The bomb, in a Mitsubishi van filled with the equivalent of 2.5 tons of high explosive, was detonated by a still unidentified suicide bomber.