Report: Indictment Possibly Issued before Policy Statement, Vote of Confidence
The indictment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will be issued before the Lebanese cabinet’s policy statement is announced or prior to the parliament’s vote of confidence, sources told al-Liwaa newspaper on Friday.
“The release of the indictment is just a matter of time, and might take the government by surprise,” the sources said.
In May, the prosecutor of the STL, Daniel Bellemare, filed an amended indictment based on further evidence in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 2005 assassination.
The new amended indictment "replaces the indictment of 11 March 2011, to include substantive new elements unavailable until recently," the office of the prosecutor said.
The indictment, which is being kept confidential, has to be examined by Belgian judge Daniel Fransen, who has the responsibility of confirming it before arrest warrants or summonses are issued.
The tribunal was set up in The Hague in 2009 by the United Nations after a massive car bomb attack killed Hariri and 22 others in Beirut.
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