Kareem Shaheen
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon Tuesday resumed hearing evidence in the case of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The Hague-based court is hearing the testimony of Conrad Schlatter, a Swiss chemist and explosives expert who assisted the investigation into the attack.
“The essential question was whether the explosion took place above or below ground, what kind of explosive was used, [and] if possible we were to say something about how much explosive was used and ... something about the trigger mechanism of the device,” Schlatter said.
Schlatter, an expert crime scenes and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), was part of the U.N. Fact Finding Mission headed by Irish police chief Peter Fitzgerald. He arrived in Beirut on March 5, 2005, with experts on weapons ballistics and DNA collection from crime scenes.
The U.N.-backed tribunal has indicted five members of Hezbollah in connection with the Valentine’s Day bombing in 2005 that killed Hariri and 21 others. Their trial in absentia began in January.
After having been adjourned for the summer recess, the court is expected to hear testimony from five witnesses over the coming two weeks. The STL has heard evidence from 22 witnesses so far.
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