BEIRUT: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s decisions must be accepted unless there is proof that the court is “politicized,” Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai said Monday.
“Everything in Lebanon is politicized and politics [in Lebanon] spoils everything, hence the positions on the court, which was established to achieve justice. Until we can prove that the tribunal is politicized, we have to accept everything it issues,” Rai told reporters at his summer residence in Diman in north Lebanon.
The STL, established by the U.N. to try the assassins of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and others, issued its first indictment including arrest warrants for four Hezbollah members June 30.
Hezbollah has for the past year dismissed the court as an “Israeli project” targeting the resistance and has repeatedly denied any involvement. Following the release of the indictment, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said that no one could reach the indicted members, even after “300 years.”
“We are with achieving justice. But some say that the court is politicized. Who among us would accept that the court be politicized or fabricated?” Rai said. “We have to separate politics from the judiciary. People have been killed and there is lawlessness.”
“If the court were not present, who would protect us? Who would protect the people? We do not accept a politicized tribunal, but do we accuse it of being such because we are at odds with it?” Rai asked.
Meanwhile, Future bloc MP Riad Rahhal said that if Hezbollah was innocent, then it should hand over the indicted to the judiciary after appointing defense attorneys for them.
But Agriculture Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan, a Hezbollah official, said that the tribunal was created by a U.S.-dominated U.N. Security Council and could not be entrusted to deliver justice into Hariri’s case.
“A judge should be just, transparent and lead us to truth and justice. But this does not apply to the international community, under which the Arabs have suffered for many years,” Hajj Hasan said in a ceremony in Hermel.
“It [the international community] is the specter of Israel, a tool [in the hands of the] United States to serve Israel and does not deserve to be appointed as a guardian of justice,” Hajj Hasan added.
Rahhal said that the Future Movement would turn to the people if the Cabinet scraps the protocol of cooperation between Lebanon and the STL and withdraws the Lebanese judges from the body.
“We will resort to the people who will decide how to confront [the Cabinet] with peaceful means,” he added.
The opposition accuses the March 8-dominated Cabinet of drafting a vague article on the STL in its policy statement as a prelude to ending Lebanon’s cooperation with the STL.
The statement stresses Lebanon’s respect for U.N. Resolution 1757 and pledges to follow the tribunal’s path to reach the truth in Hariri’s assassination.
After a meeting under former President Amin Gemayel, the Kataeb (Phalange) Party politburo said in a statement that the Cabinet’s position on the STL was not in line with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1757, which established the STL.
“This will put Lebanon in confrontation with international justice and have economic and financial repercussions especially now that the tourism season has begun,” said the statement.
Future bloc MP Ahmad Fatfat said that “no one can tarnish the transparency of the tribunal which it showed by releasing the four officers one month before parliamentary elections, which negatively affected on the March 14 coalition in some areas.”
The STL released four top security officials suspected in Hariri’s assassination in April 2009 for lack of evidence after they had served four years in jail.
Fatfat also assured the Lebanese that funds needed by the STL to continue its duties were secured. Lebanon has not yet paid its roughly $32-million share of the 2011 STL budget.
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