The Daily Star - Lebanon fails to detain Hezbollah suspects: STL - August 09, 2011

BEIRUT: Lebanon has failed to detain four Hezbollah suspects indicted in the 2005 assassination of former statesman Rafik Hariri, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said Tuesday.
“The Lebanese authorities reported to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon on the measures that they have taken to search for, arrest and transfer those accused in the 14th February 2005 attack,” said a statement released by the court.
Prosecutor General Saeed Mirza submitted his report, which said that the Lebanese authorities had not detained any of the suspects, to the STL two days prior to the deadline set by the United Nations-backed tribunal for the arrests to be made.
STL President Antonio Cassese will now “carefully consider” the report and decide on the next steps.
On June 30, an STL delegation handed over an indictment accusing four Hezbollah members, two of whom hold high ranks in the party, of involvement in the assassination and gave Lebanon 30 working days to arrest the accused.
In July, the STL identified the suspects as Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi, and Assad Hassan Sabra.
The issue of the tribunal has been one of the main sources of political tension in Lebanon with the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance rejecting the STL while the March 14 coalition describe it as the only way to achieve justice.
Soon after the release of the indictment, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said the four would never be arrested, adding that the suspects had played an honorable role in fighting Israel.
He also repeated allegations that the STL is designed to target the resistance, describing it as an Israeli-U.S. conspiracy and vowing not to cooperate with the tribunal.
Contrary to the position taken by Hezbollah, whose allies hold a majority in the Cabinet, Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that his government would cooperate with the STL and apprehend the suspects if they were in Lebanon.
Mikati has also rejected accusations that Hezbollah was “impeding” the government’s cooperation with the STL.
Hariri was assassinated on Feb. 14, 2005, when a massive car bomb detonated near his motorcade as he drove past the St. George Hotel, near Downtown Beirut. The STL was created in 2007 per U.N. Security Council Resolution 1757 "to prosecute persons responsible for the attack."
In July, Interpol issued red notices against the four suspects; a move that STL Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare said would maximize the chances of apprehending the accused.