LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands: Lebanon has ignored repeated requests to cooperate with a UN-backed court probing billionaire ex-premier Rafiq Hariri’s 2005 murder, defence lawyers said yesterday.
Lawyers also lambasted prosecutors before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) for delays in handing over evidence they needed for the trial in absentia of four Hezbollah members accused of involvement with the massive bombing.
“The defence respectfully requests... that the judge order the Lebanese government to search for, identify and provide the material sought,” said lawyers for Assad Sabra, one of the accused in a court document.
Beirut should “comply with the judge’s order no more than four weeks” after the ruling, Sabra’s lawyers added in the paper, made public by the court based in the leafy suburb of Leidschendam just outside The Hague.
Lebanon’s current government coalition is dominated by the fundamentalist Shia Muslim group Hezbollah while the Western-backed opposition is led by Rafiq’s son Saad Hariri, also a former prime minister.
Sabra’s defence has written “multiple letters” to ask Beirut for help and although the Lebanese government responded, defence lawyers have not received any information to help their case.
“The Lebanese authorities have thus far given only a pretence of cooperation by acknowledging receipt of requests or seemingly addressing some, but no actual cooperation,” his lawyers said in the document.
AFP
