After delivering in August its verdict on the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) will hold a new hearing later this month.
According to the STL Media Advisory, the upcoming Status Conference aims at reviewing the status of the Salim Ayyash case and ensuring that the preparations for his trial are made quickly.
The hearing will be publicly held on September 16th at 11 AM Beirut time, in the STL courtroom, by Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen, who has the right to go into closed session at any time if confidential matters need to be discussed.
As with the verdict, the Status Conference will be live-streamed on the STL website in Arabic, English, and French.
This will be the second Status Conference to be held in the Ayyash case. The first one took place on July 22nd, 2020.
Salim Ayyash, who has been tried in absentia along with the accused in the Hariri assassination case, was declared guilty of murdering the late PM, 15 years after the terrorist operation took place in the Lebanese capital.
Long before his conviction, Ayyash has been nowhere to be found.
Although he was identified as a member of Hezbollah, the STL Trial Chamber found no evidence linking the organization to the assassination.
Hezbollah had previously said that it was not concerned with the Trial’s verdict, whatever it would turn out to be.
On their part, Ayyash’s family issued a statement after the verdict, calling it unjust, and affirming that he had been in Saudi Arabia at the time of the bombing.
Salim Ayyash’s involvement was confirmed by the STL through a method of investigation involving a massive amount of telecommunications data, initially led by a Lebanese ISF officer, who was later assassinated.
