Lebanese former Prime Minister Fouad Saniora asked on Friday Hezbollah to immediately hand over two Hezbollah members convicted this week on charges of terrorism and murder for their role in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
On Thursday, the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s (STL) appeals chamber overturned the acquittals of two members of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group in the 2005 assassination of Hariri.
The five-judge appeals panel at STL convicted Hassan Habib Merhi and Hussein Hassan Oneissi of five charges linked to the assassination, including conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and being accomplices to intentional homicide.
In December 2020, the STL had ruled that there was insufficient evidence to convict Oneissi and Merhi. It convicted a former member of Hezbollah, Salim Jamil Ayyash, for the bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others at the Beirut seafront.
Ayyash and the two new Hezbollah convicts have been tried in absentia and remain at large.
On Friday, Saniora praised the STL’s new verdict.
“This development is proof that we were right to resort to the STL to try the criminals behind this heinous crime, as it becomes certain each day that Lebanon’s judiciary is unable to investigate several crimes, the latest of which is the flagrant inability to make any progress in probing the crime of the Beirut port blast,” the former PM said in a statement.
He said that the STL’s verdict reveals Hezbollah’s involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri and exposes the falseness of the party’s allegations and practices against Lebanon and the Lebanese.
“The verdict obligates Hezbollah to hand over the criminals without any delay,” he stressed.
Former PM Saad Hariri, the son of the slain premier, also demanded that Hezbollah hands the convicts over when the verdict was announced, accusing the party of “covering up” the crime and “protecting criminals.”
