backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up to try the killers of former Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri, inspires scant faith among Lebanese. Nearly 18 months after it began to function, the court has yet to file indictments for the huge bombing on Feb. 14, 2005 in which Hariri and 22 others died. It has no suspects in custody. Instead of delivering truth, justice and an end to a culture of impunity prevailing since Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, the tribunal – and the UN investigation that preceded it – has so far failed to dispel the doubts of its detractors. Even its supporters can barely conceal their disquiet. Perceptions are rife here that the hybrid court, which has Lebanese as well as international judges, is somehow a pawn in murky tussles for influence. “This isn't an isolated legal process. It's a heavily political process,” said Beirut-based commentator Rami Khouri. The court denies being swayed by politics, saying it works in line with the highest international judicial standards. “Its proceedings are driven by these rules and the burden of proof, not by outside influence,” said spokeswoman Fatima Issawi. Obviously, the tribunal could best assert its credibility by producing compelling evidence to identify and convict Hariri's assassins. It may yet do so, but few Lebanese would bet on a “smoking gun” emerging from a mishap-prone investigation which at first relied on witnesses who later recanted their testimony. Chances that the prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, would soon file indictments dimmed this week when he received evidence from Hezbollah, via the Lebanese authorities, that Israel was allegedly involved in the crime. Having requested that Hezbollah submit its material, Bellemare will now need time to review it – although few in Lebanon believe an international court would ever have been created had an Israeli track been suspected at the outset. Discrediting the tribunal Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, responding to reports that the tribunal planned to indict some of his men, has sought to discredit it by showing on television what he said was intercepted Israeli surveillance film of routes used by Hariri. He also suggested that Lebanese arrested in recent months as spies for Israel, some of whom worked for telephone firms, could have manipulated cellphone evidence gathered by investigators. Nasrallah, who leads Lebanon's strongest armed force, calls the court an “Israeli project” against Hezbollah and its allies. The possibility that even “rogue” Hezbollah members might face charges seemed so explosive that Syrian and Saudi heads of state jointly visited Beirut in July to calm fears of sectarian tension. On Wednesday, Hariri welcomed Hezbollah's submission of its data on the assassination and reaffirmed his own commitment to the tribunal as “the adequate body for achieving justice”. Lebanese views on whether that is indeed the case reflect the rifts between those who see the West as a malign handmaiden of Israel and those whose worst fears focus on Iran and Syria. “Both sides have grounds not to have faith in the process,” said Nadim Shehadi, of Britain's Chatham House think-tank. “Those who want it to succeed are losing hope because it's so slow and bureaucratic and costly. Those who don't want it to succeed have the conspiracy theories,” he said, accusing the tribunal's opponents of being the ones politicizing it. For Omar Nashabe, a journalist with Al-Akhbar, a newspaper often sympathetic to Hezbollah, the reverse is true. “What is cruel is when you pretend this mechanism is for justice, whereas in the back of your brain you are creating a mechanism that serves your political interests,” he said, alluding to Western powers that drive the UN Security Council. Revulsion against Syria The tribunal, with a far narrower mandate than international bodies set up elsewhere to tackle war crimes or genocide, is the child of a moment when Hariri's killing united much Lebanese, Western and Arab opinion against Syria, forcing it to loosen its 29-year military, security and political grip on Lebanon. The early reports of UN investigators implicated Syria, which denied any involvement and has since largely emerged from diplomatic isolation to regain much of its influence in Lebanon. Even Hariri, who used to accuse the Syrians of killing his father, has mended his fences with Damascus since becoming prime minister, saying it was up to the tribunal to produce the truth.
