STL Confirms Interpol Arrest Warrants

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is investigating the 2005 murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, said on Sunday that Interpol had circulated arrest warrants for the four suspects in the bombing.

"I can confirm that the tribunal has requested Interpol to notify all states of the arrest warrants against the accused in the 14th February 2005 attack," the court's spokesman in The Hague, Martin Youssef, told Agence France Presse.

He said that the international police organization had issued a so-called "red notice" to member states late on Friday but gave no information on the presumed whereabouts or the identity of the four suspects.

"The international arrest warrants will not be published and will not be available to the public because they are still confidential," he added.

A senior officer in Lebanon's security services told AFP that Lebanon and the other 187 Interpol member states had received the "red notice" on Saturday asking them to arrest the suspects and hand them over to the U.N.-backed court for trial.

The official said the warrants were for four senior Hizbullah officers who are accused of carrying out a "terrorist act" and of "killing Rafik Hariri and 21 others using explosives."

The Special Tribunal submitted a confidential indictment and arrest warrants for the four accused on June 30.

The names of the four were not released, but were leaked to the Beirut media and later confirmed by the Lebanese government.

Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Assad Sabra, and Hussein Anaissy are all members of Hizbullah.

In a July 2 speech, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah ruled out the arrest of four.

"No Lebanese government will be able to carry out any arrests whether in 30 days... 30 years or even 300 years," he said.