Hariri assassination indictment expected soon

The head of the UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri says he expects the court's prosecutor to file his first indictment"very, very soon."

Herman von Hebel has not given more details about the timing or content of the indictment, which will remain confidential until it is confirmed by a judge at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, likely early in 2011.

Von Hebel spoke to a small group of reporters at the court's headquarters in Leidschendam in theNetherlands on Thursday,a day after the United Nations appointed him registrar for three years.

He says a trial could be staged around four to six months after an indictment is confirmed, a process thatcould take six to 10 weeks. A pretrial judge could confirm all or parts of the indictment, or reject it if there is insufficient evidence.

The indictment could remain sealed even after it is confirmed, if the court believes that would make arresting suspects easier, Von Hebel said.

Tension over the tribunal has paralyzed Lebanon in recent weeks amid speculation prosecutor Daniel Bellemare will indict members of Hezbollah, the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Shia militant group that controls a military force more powerful than the national army. It is alsopart of Lebanon's fragile governing coalition.

Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, was Lebanon's most prominent politician in the years after the 1975-1990 civil war. He and 22 other people were killed by a massive truck bomb on Feb. 14, 2005. At the time, he was trying to limit Syria's influence in Lebanon.

Court will indict individuals, not groups

Von Hebel, who has previously worked at tribunals prosecuting crimes in Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia, stressed that the Hariri court will indict individuals and not organizations.

"We are talking about individual criminal responsibility, not group responsibility," hesaid.

The Hariri tribunal, like other international war crimes courts, does not have its own police force to arrest suspects.

Unlike other tribunals, it has the power to try suspects in absentia if they elude arrest.

That will prevent situations like that of Gen. Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army commander who remains on the run 15 years after being indicted by the UN Yugoslavia tribunal for genocide.