Special Tribunal for Lebanon Results Expected Soon

Drowned Out

I haven’t seen much discussion of this.... The investigation into the assassination of Rafiq Hariri is supposedly set to deliver it’s findings by year’s end. My understanding, based on what I've read, is that the expected verdict (and indictment of Hezbollah members) will greatly increase tensions between Sunni and Shiite, and will likely trigger a civil war in Lebanon....Speculation is that this will result in Israeli security issues...which would result in their involvement in the conflict (read: another invasion)...In other words; this is a HUGELY important milestone in the middle east.

I touched on the topic about a month ago, after seeing Norman Finkelstein speak. (viewtopic.php?f=13&t=143328 ) Finkelstein posits, based on statements by Daniel Kurtzer, that Israel is set to invade Lebannon once again. His prediction of Iranian involvement paints a dire picture...

I also attended a speech by George Galloway at the University here a few weeks ago (despite my governments attempts to silence him). Here is the portion of his talk dealing with the STL and it’s possible ramifications:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkVAomTVbXg

Drowned Out

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155201.html

'Seven reasons why STL is illegitimate'

A press conference in Lebanon has raised questions about the legitimacy of the US-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.


Hariri was killed in a massive car bombing in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on February 14, 2005.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) was set up in May 2007 on an apparent mandate from Beirut to investigate the murder. The tribunal is expected to announce its findings by the end of 2010 amid allegations that it is going to accuse members of the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has rejected the allegation, warning that the plot was part of "a dangerous project that is targeting the resistance."

Political analysts have warned that such indictments are meant to sow discord in Lebanon.

The recent conference, which addressed issues surrounding the performance of the tribunal, was attended by Mohammad Raad, the head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, and Dr. Salim Jreissati, a Lebanese judge and former member of the Lebanese Constitutional Council.

The first topic to be discussed at the event was, “Article 52 of the Lebanese Constitution considers the president as the only person with the authority to enter negotiations with the aim of signing agreements between Lebanon and international parties.”

This is while in the case of Hariri's assassination, his successor Prime Minister Fouad Siniora led negotiations authorizing the establishment of the court, which was sent to the cabinet based on a petition signed by members of parliament's majority bloc.

The motion was later endorsed by cabinet ministers an official Lebanese agreement without being put to a vote in parliament.

The conference provided seven reasons why the tribunal was a political court, which had failed to observe the barometers of pursuing justice, contravened the Lebanese Constitution and promoted the interests of international powers instead of Beirut.

1. Unlawful and illegal establishment of the Hariri tribunal, which violates Article 52 of the Lebanese Constitution and failure to obtain parliamentary approval.

2. Failure to observe the principle of confidentiality in preliminary investigations and the selective and political leakage of information and arguments to the news outlets listed below:

The Kuwaiti Al-Siyasa on May 21, 2005 and on March 28, 2009
The French Le Figaro on August 19, 2006
The German Der Spiegel on May 23, 2009
The Saudi Elaph website on July 8, 2009
The French r Le Monde on February 14, 2010
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on November 23, 2010

3. Requesting the telephone contact data of all Lebanese citizens and their exchanged text messages and failing to limit their request to suspected individuals.

4. Changing and modifying the courts internal regulations in violation of the provisions of its agreement with Lebanon and compelling Lebanon to offer information about individual who were not suspects.

5. Infringement on the country's independence and sovereignty through requesting information that could endanger Lebanon's national security. The interference and activities of the tribunal's investigative committee was of such massive scale over the past five years that any portion of the country's security and political information cannot be kept from alien reach.

In this regard Detlev Mehlis, Serge Brammertz, Daniel Bellemare, who each led the investigation for some time, and the other employees of the court's investigative committee, were from different countries, could have accessed any information about Lebanon.

6. The use of unreliable evidence under the pretext that in acts of terrorist it is impossible to access credible and legal evidence. In this regard, Bellemare told the Lebanese news website NOW Lebanon that evidence alone holds little value but when put together, they form an unquestionable theory.

7. The courts defective performance and the suspicious affiliation of its members to certain foreign intelligence institutions. The court operated on the theory that Syria is the prime suspect in the case and four Lebanese security officials, who had good relations with Syria, were detained for four years and Syrian officials were interrogated.

But suddenly the court changed its stance, targeted other people and another group and released the four detained officers without any explanation.

Why is it the despite Israel's repeated terrorist attacks in Lebanon and its involvement in regional conflict, does the court refuse to lay suspicion on Israel or interrogate its officials?

Aditionally, the court has refused to include Israel in its investigations depute its infiltration of the Lebanese telecommunications network and its direct control over it.

Drowned Out

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=22246
Revelations on Rafik Hariri’s Assassination: Was Israel Involved?

Translated from French

While western media have announced that indictments against Hezbollah will be issued shortly by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Russian magazine Odnako challenges the entire UN investigation. Thierry Meyssan posits that the weapon used to assassinate former Prime Minister Rafik Hairiri was supplied by Germany. Former German prosecutor and first commissioner in charge of the UN probe, Detlev Mehlis, seemingly doctored evidence to cover up his country’s involvement. These revelations embarrass the Tribunal and reverse the tide in Lebanon.


All the conflicts rocking the Middle East today crystallize around the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). Peace hinges on it, and so does war. For some, the STL should bring about the dissolution of the Hezbollah, quell the Resistance and establish a Pax Americana. Others consider that the STL is flouting the law and subverting the truth to ensure the takeover of a new colonial order in the region.
The Tribunal was created on 30 May 2007, pursuant to UN Security Council resolution 1757, to prosecute the alleged sponsors of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination. In the political context at that time, this implied nothing more and nothing less than bringing to trial serving Presidents Bashar el-Assad of Syria and Emile Lahoud of Lebanon, not exactly favourites of the neo-conservatives. However, the charges were not pursued since they were based on flimsy evidence planted by false witnesses. With no accused left, the Tribunal could easily have disappeared in the meanders of bureaucracy were it not for a turn of events that catapulted it back into the epicenter of the turbulent Middle East political scene.

On 23 May 2009, Atlanticist journalist Erick Follath disclosed on Der Spiegel Online that the prosecutor was poised to indict new suspects: certain Hezbollah military leaders. For the past 18 months, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, has been proclaiming his party’s innocence. He maintains that the real aim of the proceedings is to decapitate the Resistance and clear the region for the Israeli army. For its part, the U.S. administration in a sudden surge of righteousness pledged that no one would be allowed to shun international Justice.


In any event, the indictment - which all believe to be imminent - against Shia leaders for the assassination of a Sunni leader is of such a nature as to spark off a fitna, namely a Muslim civil war, plummeting the region into new depths of bloodshed and violence.


During his 15 and 16 November official visit to Moscow, Saad Hariri - current Lebanese Prime Minister and son of the deceased - reiterated that the political exploitation of the Tribunal exposes his country to the risk of a new conflagration. President Medvedev retorted that Russia wants Justice to be served and reproves any attempt to discredit, weaken or delay the Tribunal’s proceedings. This position of principle arises from the confidence that the Kremlin decided to place in the STL. But it risks being severely eroded by Odnako’s revelations.


Indeed, we deemed it desirable to delve into the circumstances of Rafik Hariri’s assassination. The data we unearthed has opened a new avenue, making one wonder why it had never been explored until now. In the course of our lengthy investigation, we encountered a great number of actors, too many no doubt, so that the news of our work spread quickly, alarming those for whom the assassination trail implicating the armed Lebanese Resistance represents a real godsent. Aiming to intimidate us, the Jerusalem Post on 18 October launched a preventive attack through a piece referring to our work. In a purely libelous vein, it accuses the author of this article of having received 1 million dollars from Iran to exonerate Hezbollah.


Getting down to facts, Rafik Hariri’s convoy was attacked in Beirut on 14 February 2005. Twenty-three people were killed and one hundred injured. A preliminary report commissioned by the Security Council calls attention to the unprofessional conduct of the Lebanese magistrates and police. To redress the situation, the SC assigned its own investigators, providing them with the important means that Lebanon was unable to offer. From the outset of the investigation, it was generally accepted that the attack had been perpetrated by a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives.


Having been established to compensate for the Lebanese lack of professionalism, one would have expected the United Nations mission to scrupulously observe the classical criminal procedures. Not so! The crime scene - on the basis of the topography still intact as well as the photos and video footage shot on that day - was not examined in detail. The victims were not exhumed and no autopsies were performed. For a long time, no attempt was made to ascertain the modus operandi. After discarding the hypothesis of a bomb buried in the ground, the investigators espoused the one involving the van withough bothering to verify it.


And yet, this version is implausible: looking at the crime scene, anyone can easily observe the very large and deep crater that a surface explosion could not have dug out. Faced with the adamancy of the Swiss experts who refused to endorse the official version, on 19 October the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) recreated the crime scene behind closed doors. It didn’t take place in Lebanon, nor in the Netherlands which is the seat of the STL, but in France, one of the countries funding the Tribunal. The buildings surrounding the crime scene were reconstructed and earth was brought in from Beirut. The convoy was reconstituted, including the armoured vehicle. The aim was to demonstrate that the height of the concrete buildings had confined the explosion, making it possible for the blast to produce the crater. The results of this costly experiment have never been divulged.


When looking at the photos and videos taken immediately after the attack, the first most striking feature is the blaze. Car parts and various types of objects are burning all around. Then, the bodies of the victims: they are charred on one side and intact on the other. An astonishing phenomenon which bears no resemblance to what is normally caused by conventional explosives. The theory that the van was transporting a mix of RDX, PETN and TNT does not account for the damages occurred.


What is more, from the photos showing Rafik Hariri’s corpse one can observe that his solid gold wristwatch has melted, whereas the collar of his luxury shirt still hugs his neck in pristine condition.


So, what really happened?
The explosion generated a blast of an exceptionally intense heat and exceptionally brief duration. Thus, the flesh exposed to the blast was instantly carbonized, while the body underneath was not burnt.
High-density objects (such as the gold watch) absorbed the heat and were destroyed. Conversely, low-density objects (like the delicate fabric of Hariri’s shirtcollar) didn’t have enough time to absorb the heat and were unaffected.


Moreover, the videos show that a number of limbs were severed by the explosion. Oddly, the cuts are clean, as if made on clay statues. There is no sign of shattered or jutting bones, nor of any torn flesh. The reason is that the explosion sucked up all the oxygen and dehydrated the bodies, rendering them friable. In the hours that followed, several on-the-spot witnesses complained of breathing ailments. Wrongfully, the authorities interpreted them as a psychosomatic reaction following their psychological trauma.


Such observations constitute the abc of any criminal inquiry. They should have been the starting point, yet they do not figure in any of the reports submitted by the "professional experts" to the Security Council.
When we asked a number of military experts what kind of explosives would be capable of generating such damage, they mentioned a new type of weapon which has been developed over several decades and is featured in reports appearing in scientific journals. The combination of nuclear and nonotechnology science can trigger an explosion the exact strength of which can be regulated and controlled. The weapon is set up to destroy everything within a given perimeter, down to the nearest centimeter.


Always according to the same military specialists, this weapon can also produce other types of effects: it exerts a very strong pressure on the area of the explosion. The minute it stops, the heaviest objects are propelled upwards. Accordingly, cars were sent flying through the air.


There is one unequivocal fact: this weapon is equipped with a nano-quantity of enriched uranium, emanating radiations which are quantifiable. Now, it just so happens that one of the passengers in Rafik Hariri’s armoured car survived the explosion. Former Minister Bassel Fleyhan was taken to a topnotch French military hospital for treatment. The doctors were astounded to discover that he had been in contact with enriched uranium. But no one linked this to the attack.


Technically speaking, the weapon is shaped like a small missile, a few tens of centimeters long. It must be fired from a drone. Actually, several witnesses assured they had heard an aircraft flying over the scene of the crime. The investigators asked the United States and Israel, whose surveillance satellites are permanently switched on, to provide them with the pertinent images. On the day of the attack, the United States had deployed AWACS aircraft over Lebanon. The live feeds could help to establish the presence of a drone and even to determine its flight path. But Washington and Tel Aviv - which indefatigably urge all parties to cooperate with the STL - turned down the request.


At a press conference held on 10 August 2010, Hassan Nasrallah showed a video which, according to him, was shot by Israeli military drones and intercepted by his organisation. All of Rafik Hariri’s movements had been registered for months, until the final day when all the surveillance converged on the bend in the road where the attack was staged. Thus, Tel-Aviv had been surveying the area prior to the assassination. Which is not to say, as Mr Nasrallah himself points out, that they were the authors of the crime.


So, who fired the missile?
This is where things get complicated. According to the military experts, in 2005, Germany was the only country which had a handle on this new technology. It is, therefore, Berlin which supplied and set up the crime weapon.


Hence, it is easy to understand why former Berlin Attorney General Detlev Mehlis - a very controversial figure within his own profession - was eager to preside the UN Investigation Commission. He is, in fact, notoriously linked to the German and U.S. secret services. Assigned in 1986 to shed light on the attack against the La Belle disco in Berlin, he diligently covered up all Israeli and U.S. fingerprints to falsely accuse Libya and justify the bombing of Mouammar Khadafi’s palace by the U.S. Air Force. In the early 2000s, Mr Mehlis was lavishly paid for his stint as researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (think-tank linked to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby) and at the Rand Corporation (think-tank attached to the U.S. military industrial complex). All elements which cast a shadow over his impartiality in the Rafik Hariri affair and should have sufficed to have him taken off the case.


Mehlis was seconded by Commissioner Gerhard Lehmann, who is also a well-known German and U.S. secret services agent. He was formally identified by a witness as having taken part in the programme run by the Bush Administration in Europe, involving the abduction, detention and torture of prisoners in "black holes". His name is mentioned in the ad hoc Report by the Council of Europe. Notwithstanding, he managed to dodge all judicial proceedings on the strength of a strong though unlikely alibi provided by his colleagues in the German police.


Mehlis and Lehmann propagated the theory of the explosives-laden suicide van to deflect the investigation from the German weapon that was used to commit the crime.


Various earth samples were taken from the scene of the crime. They were first mixed, then divided into three jars that were sent to three different laboratories. In the first two no trace of explosives was found. The third jar was kept by Mehlis and Lehmann, who personally sent it to the third laboratory. Here, remnants of explosives were detected. In principle, if the decision is made to resort to three judiciary experts, in case of disagreement it is the majority opinion that prevails. No way! Mehlis and Lehmann violated the protocols. They deemed that theirs was the only reliable sample and embarked the Security Council on a false trail.
The profoundly flawed character of the Mehlis-Lehmann investigations has amply been proven. Their successors acknowledged as much sotto voce and declared entire sections of proceedings nul and void.
Amidst their manipulations, the most famous one relates to the false witnesses. Five individuals purported to have seen the preparations for the attack and incriminated Presidents Bashar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud. While these allegations were fueling the drums of war, their lawyers exposed the lies and the prosecution backed down.


Based on these false testimonies, Detlev Mehlis arrested - in the name of the international community - four Lebanese generals and had them incarcerated for four years. Pushing his way with his cow-boys into private homes, without a warrant from the Lebanese authorities, he also detained for questioning members of their entourage. With his assistants - who spoke Hebrew to each other - he manipulated the families. Thus, on behalf of the international community, he showed the wife of one of the generals a doctored picture to prove that her husband had not only obscured his implication in the murder, but was also two-timing her.


Concurrently, he tried the same maneuver on the son of the "suspect"’, but in this case to convince him that his mother was a woman of loose morals, a situation which had plunged his desperate father into a murderous folly. The aim was to induce a family crime of honour, thereby tarnishing the image of respected and respectable people.


Even more incredible is Lehmann’s proposition to libertate one of the four imprisoned generals in exchange for his false testimony against a Syrian leader.


Moreover, German journalist Jürgen Cain Külbel highlighted a disturbing detail: it would have been impossible to trigger the explosion by remote control or by marking the target without first disactivating the powerful interference system built into Rafik Hariri’s convoy. A system among the most sophisticated in the world, manufactured in ... Israel.


Külbel was approached by a well-known pro-Palestinian advocate, Professor Said Dudin, to promote his book. However, the outrageous declarations frequently made by Dudin served to torpedo it instead. Külbel, a former East German criminal police officer, was quick to find out that Dudin had a long-standing reputation for being a CIA mole within the German left-wing. The journalist published a number of old East-German reports attesting to this fact and was sentenced and briefly imprisoned for illicit dissemination of documents; meantime, Dudin was settling into the German Embassy in Beirut for the purpose of infiltrating the families of the four generals.


Overlooked in the Middle East, Germany’s role in this region is worth spotlighting. After Israel’s war of aggression against Lebanon in the Summer of 2006, Chancellor Angela Merkel deployed a very large contingent to join the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The 2 400 soldiers from Germany control the maritime infrastructure to prevent arms supplies from reaching the Resistance via the Mediterranean. On that occasion, Ms Merkel declared that the mission of the German army was to protect Israel. A wind of rebellion arose among the officers. By the hundreds, they sent letters to remind her that they had enlisted to defend their homeland not a foreign country, be it an ally.


An unprecedented development took place on 17 March 2008 and 18 January 2010, when the German and Israeli governments held a joint Council of Ministers meeting where various programmes were adopted, especially in the defense sector. At this stage, there shouldn’t be too many secrets left between the Tsahal and the Bundeswehr.


The investigation conducted by Detlev Mehlis is both steeped in ridicule as regards the false witnesses, and tainted with the illegal detention of the four generals. To the extent that the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention formally and firmly condemned this excess of power.


This being said, the opprobrium that befalls Mr Mehlis’ work should not reflect on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon which is in no way responsible for his manipulations. But here, again, things get complicated. The credibility of the STL rests on its ability to curb, in the first place, all those who attempted to mask the truth and falsely accused Presidents Bachar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud, with the intention of provoking a war.
Now, it transpires that the Tribunal refuses to try the false witnesses, giving the impression that it is covering up the manipulations under Mehlis’ watch and is in fact pursuing the similar political objectifs (this time against the Hezbollah, and perhaps against others in future). Even worse, the Tribunal will not hand over to Jamil Sayyed (one of the four generals illegally detained) the minutes of his accusers’ hearings, thereby barring him from requesting compensation and making it look as if it condones four years of arbitrary detention.


In more prosaic terms, the Tribunal is shirking its responsabilities. On the one hand, it must judge the false witnesses to thwart further manipulations and to make plain its impartiality; on the other hand it refuses to undertake a "clean-up" operation which might force it to arrest Prosecutor Mehlis. However, Odnako’s revelations on the German lead render this posture untenable. All the more since it’s already too late: General Jamil Sayyed filed a complaint in Syria and a Syrian examining magistrate has already indicted Detlev Mehlis, Commissioner Gerahrd Lehmann plus the five false witnesses. One can imagine the commotion at the STL should Syria decide to call on Interpol to have them arrested.


Just as the Mehlis commission was supposed to compensate for the lack of professionalism on the part of the Lebanese forces of law and order, the STL should equally have ensured the impartiality that the Lebanese courts may have been short of. But things are far off target, which raises the question of the Tribunal’s legitimacy.


Kofi Annan didn’t want the Lebanon Tribunal to exert international jurisdiction, but to function as a national Lebanese tribunal with an international character. It would have been subjected to Lebanese law while half of its members would have been nationals of other countries. The plan did not materialize because the negotiations came to a sudden end. More precisely, an agreement was reached with the Lebanese government presided at the time by Fouad Siniora, the former authorised representative of the Hariri estate, but it was never ratified either by Parliament or by the president of the Republic. Hence, the agreement was endorsed unilaterally by the UN Security Council (Resolution 1757 of 30 May 2007). The end result is a hybrid and fragile entity.


As pointed out by Kofi Annan, this Tribunal is not analogous to any other so far created within the purview of the United Nations. "It is neither a subsidiary organ of the UN, nor a component of the Lebanese judiciary system"; it is simply "a conventional organ" sitting between the executive authority of the Lebanese government and the UN. Judging by the international rule of separation of powers and independence of the judiciary, the STL cannot be regarded as a genuine tribunal, but rather as a joint disciplinary commission within the executive frameworks of the UN and the Lebanese Government. Whatever decision it may make will inevitably be coated with suspicion.


Worse still, any Lebanese government can terminate it since, not having been ratified, the related agreement was binding only on the previous government. As a result, the present Lebanese coalition government has become a battlefield between partisans and foes of the Tribunal. In an attempt to maintain governmental stability, week after week Lebanese President Michel Sleimane has been dissuading the Council of Ministers from taking a vote on any issue linked with the STL. This embargo cannot hold out forever.


Bad news coming in pairs, suspicions have now extended to the President of the STL, Antonio Cassese. This reputable international jurist was President of the International Criminal Tribunal For the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He happens to be a ardent supporter of the Jewish colonialisation of Palestine. A personal friend of Elie Wiesel, Cassese received and accepted an honorary award, presented by Wiesel himself. He should normally have withdrawn and resigned when Hassan Nasrallah disclosed that Israeli drones had been reconnoitering the crime scene as well as the victim’s movements for months.


Worst of all, Judge Cassesse personifies an interpretation of international law that causes division in the Middle East. Although his official curriculum vitae obscures it, he took part in the 2005 negotiations between member states of the European Union and those bordering the Mediterranean Sea ("Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean"). His definition of terrorism blocked the discussions. According to him, terrorism is exclusively the act of individuals or private groups, never states. It follows that a struggle against an occupying army would not be considered as "resistance" but as "terrorism". In the local context, this juridical view is consistent with a colonial framework and disqualifies the STL.


The methods of the Special Tribunal do not differ from those applied by the Mehlis Commission. STL investigators collected mass files on Lebanese students, social security recipients and subscribers of public utility services. On 27 October, in the absence of the Lebanese judges, they even tried to snatch medical records from a gynecological clinic frequented by the wives of Hezbollah members. It is obvious that these probes have no link whatsoever with the Rafik Hariri assassination. Everything leads the Lebanese to believe that the information is actually earmarked for Israel, of which, in their eyes, the TSL is merely an offshoot.
All these problems had clearly been foreseen by President Putin when, in 2007, he had vainly made a pitch for a different wording of the STL founding resolution. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin had denounced the "juridical loopholes" of the system. He deplored that the Security Council should threaten to resort to force (Chapter VII) to achieve unilaterally the creation of this "conventional organ". He had emphasised that while the Tribunal should be working towards the reconciliation of the Lebanese people, it was devised in such a way as to divide them even more. Finally, Russia - as China - refused to endorse Resolution 1757.


The truth ultimately seeps through. The Israeli drone videos released by the Hezbollah expose Israel’s involvement in the crime preparations. The facts revealed by Odnako point to the use of a sophisticated German weapon. The puzzle is nearly complete.

Byrnzie

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

Drowned Out

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/de ... ndictments


Lebanon braced for bloodshed over report into Rafik Hariri killing
Five-year inquiry expected to accuse Hezbollah – and trigger sectarian strife not seen since Lebanon's disastrous civil war

Martin Chulov in Beirut
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 18.46 GMT


More than six months of menacing political rhetoric is likely to reach a potent day of reckoning in Lebanon soon when indictments are handed down after a five-year investigation to determine who killed the fragile state's former leader Rafik Hariri.

The indictments are almost certain to implicate at least three members of the militia group and political powerhouse Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of the elder statesman and patron to the country's Sunni Muslims.

The potential implications of that have taken Lebanon to a point that veterans of the country's civil war had vowed never to allow again.

Tensions are palpable on the streets of Beirut, which has cast itself as a city that rose from the ashes of the 15-year conflict as a cosmopolitan and tolerant capital. Now, a generation on, residents of the city and enclaves around the country are demonstrably falling in behind sectarian positions. Many fear that bloodshed cannot be avoided.

"You are not wrong," said a former president, Amin Gemayel, when asked about a sense of foreboding. "This is the most dangerous period in Lebanon for many, many years."

On one side is Hezbollah, staunch Shia Islamists who claim to represent all Lebanese interests, particularly in the standoff with Israel to the south.

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has vowed never to surrender any of his members to a Lebanese court. He claims that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which has waded through telecommunications evidence, witness statements and several red herrings since Hariri was killed by a massive car bomb, is an Israeli-US plot to discredit him and his movement.

Saad Hariri, son of the fallen leader, is the other protagonist. He has been prime minister since his coalition unexpectedly won an election 18 months ago. The country's Christians, once the majority, have split roughly down the middle – just as they did during the 1975-90 civil war – with half supporting Hezbollah and the rest backing Hariri.

Both sides have staked their all on the indictments, which have been produced by the special tribunal, based in the Hague. Hezbollah wants the tribunal dissolved and the Lebanese share of its funding withdrawn, and has called for a number of witnesses that they describe as "fake" to instead face the Lebanese justice system.
Hariri has so far held his ground, arguing that justice must be delivered. The effect has been polarising, with the country implacably split about which outcome would lead to the worst scenario.

With the delivering of the indictments to a Lebanese prosecutor now thought to be only days away, Lebanon's cabinet has not passed a decision since 10 November, and neither the government nor the opposition is prepared to give ground on the touchstone issue of how to address disputed testimonies given to the tribunal.
"I think the best scenario is to cancel the [tribunal] and continue to live together," said Paula al-Jouni, a Christian office worker in the southern city of Tyre. "We all want the truth but we don't want another war in Lebanon."

Another Tyre resident, Bassam Haddad, said: "Of course accusing Hezbollah is the worst scenario. They must cancel this [tribunal] because the life of one person is not worth destroying the country. We want to live, we want our children to live. We all want the truth, but it's not wise to kill thousands of people to achieve political agendas."

In the Hariris' west Beirut heartland there is open resentment of Hezbollah, which is seen here as representing Shia interests as well as those of its backers, Iran and Syria.

"They are accusing themselves by doing all of this," said jeweller Bakr Medekka of Nasrallah's regular recent threats, including a pledge to "lead the resistance into a new era in Lebanon" if the indictments are handed down.

"The civil war ended its battles," Medekka added. "But what is happening here now is evidence that it is not finished. All of this is being caused by outside forces. The parties here are not loyal to this place."
Laid bare once again during the crisis has been the influence of regional backers who have fallen in behind the opposing blocs. Hezbollah's support is offset by the cash and patronage given to Hariri by Saudi Arabia and the US.

Israel also looms large. The Lebanese army and Hezbollah claim to have found two long-range cameras in Beirut, and say they were planted by Israel.

An enormous explosion off the southern coast was thought to have been a third device detonated remotely after the cameras were found.

"There is a fear, a real fear that the next conflict will not be contained," said former president Gemayel, whose son Pierre was among six government MPs assassinated after Rafik Hariri's death.

"Lebanon is in a very bad situation now and it will take a lot of work to stop it from falling."