BEIRUT: Defense lawyers at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said Wednesday that a member of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s convoy who survived the explosion that killed Hariri had not seen the Mitsubishi vehicle that allegedly carried the explosives, casting doubt on a key fact in the case. The lawyers also suggested that at least one jammer used by Hariri’s motorcade to block remotely controlled bombs was not operational, a claim that could bolster their theory of an underground bomb or failures among Hariri’s security staff.
Defense lawyer Iain Edwards said a witness who will testify next week in the trial and who was part of the convoy had said the radio in his vehicle was operational, which indicates that jammers in Hariri’s motorcade meant to block remotely detonated bombs were not all working when the blast killed the former premier.
Edwards, who represents the interests of top Hezbollah operative Mustafa Badreddine, suggested that it was possible there were “catastrophic failures of the jammer system” and asked if Hariri’s top bodyguards would have had the incentive to cover up such a failure.
The lawyers also began discussing the role of Wissam al-Hasan, Hariri’s chief of protocol and later Lebanon’s top intelligence operative, who was assassinated in October 2012, and whose absence from Hariri’s convoy on the day of the assassination prompted the suspicion of international investigators.
Hasan’s whereabouts on the night before the attack were discussed but not decided upon in the trial. Prosecutors have said in the past that they do not consider him a suspect.
But the discussion of Hasan’s whereabouts in close proximity to the issue of the faulty jammer may indicate that the lawyers are seeking to draw a connection between the two, though they did not do so explicitly in trial.
The STL is tasked with prosecuting those responsible for the Valentine’s Day bombing in 2005 that killed Hariri and 21 others and plunged Lebanon into years of turmoil in addition to ending Syria’s formal tutelage over its smaller neighbor.
The U.N.-backed tribunal indicted five Hezbollah members in connection with the attack. Their trial in absentia is ongoing in The Hague.
Defense lawyers cross-examined a key witness in the case – a former bodyguard of Hariri who was in the motorcade but survived the explosion. It was the guard’s second day of testimony, and his identity was kept confidential after he reported receiving telephone threats.
The defense counsel disclosed testimony by the bodyguard given to U.N. investigators in 2005 and 2006, in which he said he had not seen a Mitsubishi Canter van in the moments leading up to the explosion. They said they were also in possession of statements by another member of the convoy who survived the explosion, who also said he had not seen a Mitsubishi van.
The witness said he did not remember anything from the final 50-meter stretch of road before the explosion due to the massive blast, though defense lawyers say his testimony indicates that he had a view of the front of the St. Georges Hotel, where the Mitsubishi was supposedly parked.
Prosecutors say Hariri was killed when his motorcade passed by the St. Georges and next to an explosives-laden Mitsubishi van that was double-parked on the side of the road. Defense lawyers say the blast was caused by an underground bomb.
Defense lawyers probed the bodyguard on whether Wissam al-Hasan had accompanied Hariri frequently on trips to Syria, as well as if he had visited the Hariri residence late the night before the assassination. They suggested that CCTV footage in Qoreitem Palace, Hariri’s home in the Hamra neighborhood, would have picked up Hasan’s visit, but did not say what happened when international investigators went looking for the tapes.
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