During the last few hours, reports on the ‘imminent release’ of the indictment were re-vivified, right after the collapse of the unity government in what analysts said was a perfect timing for the tribunal, believed by a main Lebanese group as a political tool in US and Israeli hands to target the country and the resistance.
The indictment is expected to implicate Hezbollah in the murder; a move widely seen as politicized serving US and Israeli interests in Lebanon and the region.
INDICTMENT TO BE SUBMITTED MONDAY…
Labor minister in the caretaker government Butros Harb confirmed on Saturday the press reports. He told various news agencies that the prosecutor probing the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is to submit murder charges into the 2005 assassination on Monday.
"According to my information, the chargesheet will be submitted on Monday," Harb told AFP by telephone, without giving details, in reaction to a report on Saturday in the French daily Le Monde.
The newspaper said on its Internet site that prosecutor Daniel Bellemare in the Hariri murder probe will present his findings to pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen who needs to examine them before a formal indictment can be issued.
Le Monde, citing sources close to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon based in The Hague, said that members of Hezbollah will be targeted in the charge sheet, as it has become known.
CONFLICTING REPORTS…
Earlier reports said that the indictment was very ‘imminent.’
Lebanese daily An-Nahar quoted sources as saying that Bellemare will deliver the indictment in the investigation into Hariri’s assassination on Saturday at 3:00pm. The sources added that should any development impede the delivery on Saturday, Fransen would receive the indictment on Monday at the latest.
According to the tribunal's rules of procedure, Fransen will next be tasked with confirming the confidential indictment before any arrest warrants or summonses to appear can be issued - a process that should take six to 10 weeks. He could also reject the charges in part or in full, or ask the prosecutor for additional information.
The STL declined to comment on the report. "We will say it has been done the day it has been done, we won't announce when this is going to take place," spokesman Crispin Thorold told AFP.
On Friday, Reuters news agency quoted sources familiar with the case as saying that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare will "imminently" send the draft indictment to the pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen. The sources told Reuters that the indictment will be sent to the tribunal pre-trial judge for confirmation imminently, saying it could "perhaps come as early as next week."
End item/ 129
