Aoun, Diab Tell STL Lebanon to Pay Contribution despite Crisis
The Registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Daryl Mundis has been told by President Michel Aoun and Premier Hassan Diab that Lebanon is committed to U.N. resolution 1757 which established the STL, media reports said.
Aoun and Diab also told Mundis that Lebanon will honor the payment of its annual financial contribution to the court, which amounts to $50 million, despite the severe economic-financial crisis it is going through, al-Joumhouria newspaper has reported.
The president is keen on abiding by the U.N. resolution “because the Lebanese state refuses to be outside the international system at the judicial and financial levels and because it wants to speed up the issuance of the verdicts in the case of the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri,” the daily added.
A massive suicide bomb tore through Hariri's armored convoy on the Beirut seafront on February 14, 2005, killing him and 22 other people.
The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon has tried four Hizbullah operatives in absentia over the crime and the verdicts are expected to be issued later this year.
Hizbullah has denied involvement in the case, describing the tribunal as a U.S.-Israeli scheme and vowing that the accused will never be found.
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