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| - As a special tribunal sentences a Hezbollah member to life behind bars Friday for the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafic Hariri, we look back on the case. A massive suicide bomb tears through Hariri's armoured convoy on the Beirut seafront in February 2005, killing him and 21 other people. Opposition leaders blame Syria but Damascus denies any role. Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah is also strongly suspected. Amid a groundswell of protests, Syrian troops quit Lebanon on April 26 after a 29-year deployment which peaked at 40,000 troops. Later that year, a United Nations commission says there is evidence that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were involved in the killings. In 2007, following a UN Security Council resolution, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is established to try those accused of carrying out the attack. The anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon celebrate the move, while Hezbollah, ally of Damascus and Tehran, says it violates Lebanese sovereignty. In March 2009, the STL opens in The Hague suburb of Leidschendam. The following month, it orders the release of four Lebanese generals held in custody in Lebanon since 2005 without charge over the assassination. In November 2010, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warns his group will "cut off the hand" of anyone who tries to arrest any of its partisans over the assassination. The following June, the STL issues an indictment and arrest warrants for four Hezbollah members: Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Assad Sabra and Hussein Oneissi. Nasrallah rejects the charges along with "each and every void accusation" by the court. In August, the STL decides it has enough evidence to try the four and publishes the full indictment. In 2013, the tribunal indicts a fifth suspect over the assassination -- Hezbollah member Hassan Habib Merhi. The trial opens in Leidschendam on January 16, 2014, without the four, who Hezbollah refuses to give up. According to the prosecution, Badreddine and Ayyash organised and carried out the attack, while Oneissi and Sabra are accused of delivering a video to the broadcaster Al Jazeera with a false claim of responsibility, to protect the real killers. In February, the tribunal announces it is adding the fifth suspect to the trial, Merhi. In May 2016, Hezbollah announces Badreddine's death in an attack in Syria. In September 2019, the tribunal indicts Ayyash over three other deadly attacks on politicians in 2004 and 2005. He is charged with terrorism and murder over attacks that killed the ex-leader of the Lebanese Communist Party Georges Hawi and two others, as well as wounding several people. On August 18, 2020, judges find Ayyash guilty of murder and terrorism but acquit Oneissi, Sabra and Merhi, saying there is not enough evidence to convict them. Ayyash, now 57, is sentenced Friday to five concurrent life jail terms. acm-eab/fg/lg
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