Reports: STL-convicted Ayyash killed in Israeli strike in Syria
Hezbollah official Salim Ayyash, who was convicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon over the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, has been killed in a recent Israeli strike in Syria’s Qusayr area, Arab and Israeli media reports said.
The STL had in December 2020 sentenced Ayyash to life imprisonment.
The tribunal convicted Ayyash earlier that year of being a co-perpetrator in five charges linked to the suicide truck bombing on Beirut's seafront on Feb. 14, 2005. The huge blast killed Hariri and 21 others and injured 226.
"Mr. Ayyash participated in an act of terrorism that caused mass murder. His role ... was vital to the success of the attack," Presiding Judge David Re said.
The court had issued international arrest warrants for Ayyash and authorized its prosecutor to ask international law enforcement agency Interpol to issue "red notices" to its member states seeking his arrest.
Three other Hezbollah members were acquitted in August 2020 of all charges that they also were involved in the killing that sent shock waves through the Middle East.
In a verdict met with disappointment in Beirut, the tribunal ruled that there was no evidence that the Hezbollah leadership and Syria were involved in the attack, despite saying the assassination happened as Hariri and his political allies were discussing calling for an "immediate and total withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon."
Source: Naharnet
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