U.N.’s Lebanon tribunal issues indictments that toppled a government

A U.N. prosecutor on Monday submitted a sealed indictment against suspects in the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister, concluding an investigation that has cast suspicion on top Syrian leaders and Hezbollah militants and contributed
to the collapse this month of the country’s pro-Western government.

Daniel Bellemare, the U.N. tribunal’s Canadian prosecutor, filed the indictment under seal late Monday before the court’s pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen. It could be at least several weeks before the identities of the suspects are known, and nearly a year before a trial is likely to be held.  The case has roiled Lebanese politics, with widespread anticipation that the prosecutor will name members of the militant movement Hezbollah in connection with the bombing attack that killed Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and 22 others.

"The prosecutor has submitted an indictment and supporting materials to the pre-trial judge,” said a terse statement issued late Monday by the Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon. "The contents of the indictment remain confidential at this stage." Read the rest of the story I wrote with Leila Fadel in the Washington Post.

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