Lebanon’s Hezbollah-dominated government will deal “responsibly and realistically” with a UN indictment issued Thursday in the 2005 murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, Prime Minister Najib Mikati said. “Today we are facing a new reality that we must be aware of … and deal with responsibly and realistically … bearing in mind that these are accusations and not verdicts,” Mikati told a press conference. “All suspects are innocent until proven guilty.” Mikati, however, failed to specify whether his government would cooperate with the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which on Thursday issued arrest warrants for four Lebanese suspects in the Hariri case.
The previous government headed by Hariri’s son and political heir Saad Hariri was brought down in January after it refused to abide by Hezbollah’s demand that it cease cooperation with the Netherlands-based STL. Local media said the four Lebanese suspects were all members of the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah, blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington. In November, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned that his party would “cut off” the hand of anyone who tries to arrest members of the Shiite militant group.
