Prosecutors at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) investigating the 2005 assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri urged on Wednesday judges to reject a motion for early dismissal of charges against two of the four suspects.
Prosecutor Alexander Milne acknowledged “a lack of direct evidence” in the case. The four suspects are all charged with conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and murder, or being an accomplice to murder, in the waterfront bomb blast that killed Hariri and 21 others.
But Milne said circumstantial evidence was compelling.
“The pattern only emerges when you see all the pieces,” Alexander Milne told the court in The Hague.
Earlier, court-appointed defense lawyer Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse said the prosecution’s evidence, based mainly on analysis of telecoms data, is “built on a fictional world”.
Representing suspect Hussein Hassan Oneissi, the lawyer argued were “no prints, no photos, no texts, no email” nor any video evidence linking his client to the alleged bomb plot to kill Hariri. Lawyers for Salim Jamil Ayyash also said the prosecution had not met its burden of proof.
Oneissi is charged as an accomplice and co-conspirator in the plot. Prosecutors accuse him of organizing a video-taped false claim of responsibility intended to shield the true perpetrators of the devastating bombing.
Lawyers for the two other suspects, Hassan Habib Merhi and Assad Hassan Sabra, did not seek early acquittal.
The suspects -- all with links to Lebanon’s Iran-backed “Hezbollah” movement -- are all fugitives.
The tribunal was established in the Netherlands in 2009 after Lebanon’s then-government said it lacked the resources and means to investigate the killing.
Judges will rule on the applications for acquittal as soon as practicable, a court spokeswoman said.
Earlier this month, prosecutors wrapped up their case after four years. They called more than 260 witnesses and showed judges some 2,470 exhibits as they laid out their case that the four suspects plotted together to blow up Hariri with a massive truck bomb.
Defense attorneys have not yet presented any evidence
All four suspects insist they are innocent and “Hezbollah” also denies involvement in Hariri's assassination.
The case against a fifth suspect was halted in 2016 after he was killed in Syria.
