UN Lebanon Indictment Lodged; Results Sealed
VOA News 17 January 2011
The prosecutor of the United Nations tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri has submitted a confidential indictment to the pre-trial judge.
The indictment against suspects submitted by Daniel Bellemare will remain undisclosed until the judge approves it. The results will not be made public for six to 10 weeks.
The indictment comes as Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has postponed for a week talks on forming a new government.
The office of Lebanon's president made the announcement Monday, which had been expected to be the start of the two days of talks.
Mr. Suleiman did not give a specific reason for the reschedule, but an international summit is meeting later in the day in Syria on the crisis.
Last week, Hezbollah and its allies quit Lebanon's Western-backed government led by Mr. Hariri's son, caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, due to tensions regarding the impending submission of the indictment.
The leader of Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah militia, Hassan Nasrallah, refuses to support the son of the slain leader, alleging the prime minister backed out of an agreement to reject the U.N.-backed tribunal under pressure from the U.S. and Israel.
Nasrallah maintains the tribunal's expected indictments are political attacks on Hezbollah, and he says the organization will soon disclose how it plans to defend itself.
Hezbollah is Lebanon's most powerful military force, with an arsenal that far outweighs that of the national army.
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