BEIRUT: Valentine’s Day marks the 10-year anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and Lebanon’s TV stations are premiering a documentary with never-before-seen details of his life and the investigation of his death.
Six major TV stations will broadcast a jointly produced documentary titled “Zaman Rafik Hariri” (The Era of Rafik Hariri).
The film airs Friday at 9:30 p.m. on Future TV, LBC, MTV, Tele Liban, NBN and OTV, exactly a decade from the eve of Hariri’s murder.
The former premier was killed on Feb. 14, 2005, in a massive bombing near the Saint-George Hotel in Mina al-Hosn.
The explosion killed 22 people and wounded more than 200.
The assassination precipitated the division of Lebanon’s political establishment into two camps, the March 8 and March 14 movements, named for competing rallies held in the tumultuous aftermath of the killing. Continued protests led to the “Cedar Revolution,” which brought an end to 30 years of Syrian military presence in Lebanon.
The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon was established to investigate the assassination and bring the killers to justice. On Jan. 16, 2014, the Hague-based tribunal began proceedings against five Hezbollah members, who are being tried in absentia.
“Zaman Rafik Hariri” will examine the “major and pivotal phases” in the life of Hariri, who is credited with rebuilding Beirut following Lebanon’s destructive Civil War.
Renowned Lebanese journalist George Ghanem contributed to the film. Director Pierre Sarraf highlighted Ghanem’s role in the project, and said it was especially important due to his knowledge of political developments at the time of Hariri’s death.
“This is the added value of the film,” Sarraf told The Daily Star. “The film wasn’t done 10 years ago in the middle of the chaos. For the first time, we’re taking a step back and narrating the story from a [historical] perspective. And things that couldn’t have been said before can be said today.”
“Zaman Rafik Hariri” will attempt to shed light on the personal life of the late premier as well as his political legacy.
“We tried to do something which documentarists refer to as an ‘album de famille’ [family album],” Sarraf said.
The film shows personal and archival photographs from throughout Hariri’s life, some of which have never been seen by the public.
The documentary also features people whom Sarraf described as being in Hariri’s “inner circle,” including Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, Future bloc leader Fouad Siniora, and former intelligence chief Johnny Abdo.
“Through the script, the picture, and the music, we tried to give a feeling that’s a bit personal,” Sarraf explained.
The film stops on the day of the assassination, and does not delve into political changes that followed.
Future TV has also a produced a proprietary documentary examining the assassination itself. “The Road to the 14th of February” will air Friday at 8:30 p.m.
“This [documentary] narrates the process of the assassination of Rafik Hariri – the planning phase, the monitoring, and the implementation,” Hussein Wajeh, Future TV’s director of news and political programs, said.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Wajeh explained that the film would present information based on the indictments handed down by the STL. “There’s someone who gathered all of this information [from the STL] and we are presenting it as a televised story.”
“Everyone knows Rafik Hariri was assassinated on Feb. 14, 2005, and everyone has a piece of the story,” Wajeh said.
“We are trying to tell the people that this is how [the killers] assassinated Rafik Hariri, based on the facts, data and information presented by the tribunal – not [just] analyses or accusations.”
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