UN reports progress in setting up Lebanon”s Hariri tribunal

 

The United Nations and Lebanon have made progress in establishing an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri,UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.

 

Ban said he will announce the names of judges for the tribunal once all preparations are completed, including the ratification by the Dutch parliament of an agreement to set up the tribunal at The Hague, where UN courts like the International Criminal Court are already functioning.

 

The tribunal”s budget would cost up to 120 million dollars for a three-year period and already has received more than 30 million dollars in contributions from UN members.

 

Ban said “good progress” had been made in negotiations between the UN and Lebanon on setting up the tribunal, but voiced “deep disappointment” that Lebanese legislators have so far failed to resolve the deadlocked election of a president.

 

The UN was banking on Lebanese leaders to help the legal process in finding those who killed Hariri in February 2005 and more than two dozen other political assassinations in the past two years. The absence of a top political leader was hurting justice in finding the killers.