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UN Will Try Accused Assassins of Ex-Lebanese PM
Divided Security Council OKs tribunal
By Colleen Barry
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Posted May 31, 07 10:15 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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A UN tribunal will try suspects in the 2005 assassination of the ex-PM of Lebanon, raising fears of worsening unrest in the unstable country. Five members abstained from yesterday's Security Council vote, signaling a serious rift. And Syria, which has been implicated in the suicide truck-bomb attack that killed Rafik Hariri, warned against the establishment of the tribunal.
PM Fouad Siniora backed the vote, which the opposition-controlled parliament had opposed. Hariri's assassination helped drive Syria out of Lebanon after 29 years of occupation, and Damascus has maintained that Syrian suspects should be tried in their own country. Syria's UN ambassador called the vote "something that goes against the interests of the Lebanese people and Lebanon as a whole."