Hariri tribunal issues indictment

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was a billionaire businessman

The UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon says its prosecutor has issued indictments for the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The names of the accused remain confidential for now, but are widely believed to include members of the armed Shia group Hezbollah.

A pre-trial judge now decides whether to issue warrants.

Last week, Hezbollah and its allies brought down Lebanon’s government in a dispute over the tribunal.

The group, which denies any role in the killing, has dismissed the tribunal as a US and Israeli plot that is designed to discredit it.

It has demanded that Lebanon cease all co-operation with the court and cut off its funding.

Amid the political crisis, talks on naming a new prime minister have been postponed until next week.

“The prosecutor of the tribunal [Daniel Bellemare] has submitted an indictment and supporting materials to the pre-trial judge [Daniel Fransen],” the court said in a statement on its website.

The contents of the indictment will remain confidential at this stage, it added.

UN officials have said that the identity of the suspects will not be made public until Judge Fransen endorses the draft indictments and issues warrants – a process could take two to three months.

Rafik Hariri and 22 other people died when a massive blast ripped through his motorcade in central Beirut.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.