Lebanese court issues pre-trial brief in Hariri's assassination

Rafik Hariri's assassination on the STL The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) issued an edited public version of the prosecution's pre-trial brief regarding Rafik Hariri's assassination on the STL website, it announced in a statement on Monday. The STL had announced on Friday that the prosecution has filed its pre-trial brief, the list of witnesses it intends to call at trial, and the list of exhibits it intends to offer into evidence in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination in 2005. According to the brief, the prosecution should call 557 witnesses in addition to 13,170 exhibits on the exhibit list, and the total time estimated for presentation of the prosecution's case is 457.5 hours.
Thursday's filing is in accordance with a deadline set by pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen as part of the preparation for trial, the STL said in a statement.
"The Prosecution's 58-page pre-trial brief elaborates on the allegations and charges in the Indictment," it said.
"The brief includes for each count charged in the Indictment, a summary of the evidence which the Prosecution intends to bring regarding the commission of the alleged crime and the form of responsibility incurred by the accused."
The documents were all filed on a confidential basis, the statement said, adding the list of witnesses and list of exhibits will remain fully confidential, unless the judges decide otherwise.
Warrants have been issued against Hezbollah members Selim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein Oneissi and Assad Sabra for their alleged roles in the February 2005 assassination of Hariri in a massive truck bombing on the Beirut seafront.
In the pre-trial brief issued on Monday, STL Prosecutor Norman Farrell outlined five mobile phone networks - called the Red, Green, Blue, Yellow and Purple Networks - whose members he argued had played different roles in the planning and execution of the 2005 bombing.
The prosecutor presented Selim Ayyash, who allegedly used phones in the Red, Green, Blue and Yellow Networks, as a key coordinator who oversaw the plot. Two other members of the Red Network were part of the Blue and Yellow Networks, suggesting they also helped coordinate the different networks.
Mustafa Badreddine, who faces the same charges as Ayyash, was not part of the Red Network but the prosecution argues that he maintained close contact with Ayyash using Green Network phones, helping monitor Hariri as well as he was the one who purchased the truck eventually used by a suicide bomber. Farrell argues that there were at least 50 days of surveillance of Hariri, beginning at the latest on October 20, the day he resigned as prime minister.
"By observing relevant locations, as well as Hariri's movements and those of his security team, Badreddine, Ayyash and the assassination team determined the most suitable location and method for the attack, which they then executed," the brief says.
The pre-trial brief outlined that Badreddine was charged of taking part in a blast series that took place in Kuwait in 1983, he was 23 years old then.
Farrel said in the brief that the tactics used in the Kuwait bombings were too similar to these of Hariri's assassination.
The other two men named in the indictment, Hussein Oneissi and Assad Sabra, are purportedly members of the Purple Network. The prosecutor accused them of finding an individual to make a false claim of responsibility for the attack, and for contacting news agencies to disseminate the claim directly following the bombing.
Oneissi also allegedly participated in the "disappearance" of the man, Ahmad Abu Adass, who was seen in a video claiming responsibility for the assassination on behalf of a nonexistent militant group.