BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah Saturday ruled out the arrest of four members of his group indicted by a UN court for the 2005 assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri. In his first reaction to charges filed by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), Nasrallah rejected the verdict along with “each and every void accusation” by the Netherlands-based court, which he said was heading for a trial in absentia. “We reject the Special Tribunal for Lebanon along with each and every void accusation it issues, which to us is equivalent to an attack on Hezbollah,” Nasrallah said in an hour-long televised speech. “No Lebanese government will be able to carry out any arrests whether in 30 days ... 30 years or even 300 years,” Nasrallah, whose group dominates the current government, said. “What will happen is a trial in absentia, a trial in which the verdict has already been reached.” The STL on Thursday handed Lebanon's prosecutor general Said Mirza arrest warrants for four members of the Iranian- and Syrian-backed group in connection with the Feb. 14, 2005 bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others in Beirut. Lebanon has 30 days to serve out the STL arrest warrants. If the suspects are not arrested within that period, the tribunal can then publicly call on them to surrender. But the whereabouts of the four remain unknown – a fact Nasrallah said was unlikely to change. “I doubt that anyone can find the ‘suspects' or arrest them,” he said. Among the suspects is senior commander Mustafa Badreddine, who is accused of masterminding the Beirut bombing that killed Hariri, Lebanon's most powerful leader. – Agence France
