Lebanese pay tribute to Hariri as tribunal is launched (News Feature)

By Weedah Hamzah Mar 1, 2009, 10:28 GMT

Beirut - Dozens of followers of Lebanon's late former premier Rafik Hariri gathered Sunday to lay white flowers at his grave, as an international tribunal is launched in The Hague to try suspects in his murder.

'Justice for all Lebanon,' read a placard posted near the grave of Hariri and six of his bodyguards who fell in a massive blast on February 14, 2005 in a seaside area of Beirut.

Verses of the holy Koran echoed from the nearby Al-Amin Mosque, which was built by Hariri before his assassination.

'We are here to pay tribute to the late Hariri and his bodyguards and all those who were killed during the blast and after,' said Akram Baltagi, a follower of Hariri's Future Current Movement.

Several ministers among them, Member of Parliament (MP) Marwan Hamadah, who himself was a target of a blast that ripped through his convoy in October 2004.

'The tribunal is not only for us who belong to the Hariri camp, but for all of Lebanon,' Hamadah told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Another victim present at the grave of Hariri, was television anchor May Chidiac, who was also the target of a bomb attack in September 2005, in which she lost a leg and an arm.

Chidiac stood in tears near Hariri's grave and said 'I cannot but say this is a historical day for Lebanon.'

'I tell the murderers you will be punished after all,' she added.

Since Hariri's assassination, Lebanon has been rocked by several blasts during in which eight anti-Syrian Lebanese officials belonging to the Hariri camp have been killed.

The mother of one of murdered Hariri's bodyguards, Mohammed Darwish, also carried white flowers to his grave.

'I came today to tell my son that justice will be made to punish the people who killed him and others along with the great martyr premier Rafik Hariri,' said Sahar Darwish.

'All I want is justice for all who died in Lebanon, including my son,' she said.

A large television screen showing the launching of the tribunal was placed near the grave, as followers of Hariri stood in silence watching.

'My heart is beating with joy,' said Maria Hibri as she stood watching the launch of the Netherlands-based tribunal.

Sunday's ceremony at The Hague was attended by some 50 foreign diplomats and 130 Lebanese and foreign journalists.

A few metres away from the site of the February 2005 explosion, a crowd, including friends of the then economic minister Bassel Fleihan who also was killed in the blast, gathered to pay their respects.

'We came here to pay tribute for all who fell with Hariri and our friend Bassel Fleihan. We came to say justice will be made after all,' said Akram Zuheiri, a close friend of Fleihan's.

Hariri's wife, Nazik, in a statement from her home in Paris, stressed that the tribunal was not 'for revenge but it is to bring justice and end the political assassinations in Lebanon.'

The court, constituted under a United Nations mandate, is to probe among other things allegations that Syria and its Lebanese allies were behind Hariri's killing. Syria strongly denies the allegations.

Hariri's son, Saad, who currently heads the anti-Syrian ruling majority at the Lebanese parliament: 'For the first time we see that justice will take its course.'

General Prosecutor Judge Daniel Bellemare at the special tribunal for Lebanon, told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV on Saturday that 'those who doubted the establishment of the Special Tribunal should know that it has become a reality.'