Life sentence for the sole defendant in the 2005 assassination of Rafic Hariri

This Friday the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (TEL) sentenced Salim Jamil Ayyash, a member of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, to five life sentences for the attack that took the life of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri and 21 other people on 14 February 2005, the first international sentence for a terrorist crime.

Ayyash, a fugitive from justice, was sentenced to serve all five sentences "simultaneously" and were handed down separately for each of the five crimes he was charged with, including conspiracy and preparation of the terrorist attack; intentional killing of Hariri; killing 21 others; and attempted murder of the 226 people injured in the attack. 

After a decade of a trial in absentia, the Court determined that the maximum sentence is justified by the "gravity of the crimes" committed by Ayyash, who "played a vital role" in the commission of the attack on Hariri, with "the consequent impact" that tragedy had on Lebanese society, said presiding judge David Re.

"Lebanon has a parliamentary system. Politicians should be removed from office at the ballot box, rather than with a bullet or a bomb in a terrorist attack," concluded Justice Micheline Braidy from a UN-backed tribunal based in the Dutch city of Leidschendam. 

For the judges, Ayyash, "responsible as a co-perpetrator for committing these crimes", not only sought to "kill Hariri" with the attack, but with "the shocking terrorist attack also inflicted collective damage on the Lebanese people, attacking their system of government," the judge said.  

Fifteen years after that attack, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon held Ayyash "responsible" for the preparation of the terrorist attack that killed Hariri and 21 other people in the area, and injured 226 others.

Hariri was one of Lebanon's most influential Sunni leaders and opposed Syrian influence in the country, which led many to point to Damascus as responsible for the assassination.

Justice has not managed to find sufficient evidence to "directly link" the Syrian government or Hezbollah's leadership to the preparation of the terrorist attack on Hariri, though Re acknowledged that Ayyash, 57, "did not act alone" but "played an important role in preparing the attack", making him "guilty of all the charges".

Ayyash, whom Hezbollah refuses to hand over to the Lebanese authorities in order to transfer him to the Netherlands to take part in the legal proceedings against him, still has three other bomb attacks committed against different Lebanese politicians between October 2004 and July 2005 pending at the TEL.