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Hariri tribunal targets resistance

The tribunal probing into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is engineered by world powers to harm the resistance front in Lebanon, an analyst says.

“There are foreign powers, who have invested a lot of time and a lot of efforts in this tribunal, thinking that this is an instrument to get to the major worry of Israel in the area, that is the resistance,” said Daoud Khairallah, a Georgetown University law professor, in an interview with Press TV.

“The entire idea of the tribunal is an instrument of political pressure to reach political objectives,” he added.

Khairallah argued, “It has never happened in the history that major powers, US included, go to the Security Council and get resolutions about establishing a tribunal on a crime that is not known in the international law.”

“Justice is the first victim and justice, that is supposed to bring together a country, has turned through the tribunal into a reason for dividing the country and keeping it divided and keeping a certain chaos inside the country and that is what we are witnessing.”

“This is not a totally independent tribunal and that is why there is disturbance and anger on one side and that is why there is lack of confidence in the legal process,” he further emphasized.

Former premier Hariri and 20 other people were assassinated on February 14, 2005, when explosives equal to around 1,000 kilogram of TNT were blown up in downtown Beirut.

The Washington-sponsored Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) was set up some two years later to look into the deadly incident.

Reports say that the court would likely issue an indictment against some Hezbollah members.

Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has vehemently rebuffed the allegations. He has described the tribunal as part of dangerous projects that are targeting the resistance movement.

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