STL Continues Hearings of Witnesses Linked to Hariri Assassination

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon continued on Tuesday hearing the testimonies of witnesses linked to the February 14, 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Firefighter at the Bashura sector in the Beirut Fire Department Khaled Toubaili continued the testimony he had started on Monday during which he recounted the details of the firefighting operations at the scene of the blast in Beirut.

He gave details of the destruction caused by the blast, saying that cars of Hariri's convoy were all completely burnt in the attack.

“We could extinguish fire easily in people's vehicle but not in those of the convoy,” he revealed.

“The fuel tanks were exploding in our faces. We extinguished fire with water and every time we put off a blaze, it would ignite again. We used large quantities of foam to finally be able to extinguish the blaze,” added Toubaili.

Continuing his testimony on Tuesday, the witness answered questions from the Prosecution, Legal Representatives of the Victims, and Defense co-counsel for suspect Mustafa Badreddine, Iain Edwards.

Toubaili said that his firefighting brigade arrived at the blast site at 1 pm and that it took all three brigades at the scene about two-and-a-half hours to put it out.

He stressed that the firefighters were strictly responsible for saving victims from the fire and putting out the blaze, saying that the security and military forces are tasked with keeping onlookers from heading to site.

The role of the 70 to 80 firefighters in the area ended as soon as the fire was extinguished and the scene was left to cool, added Toubaili.

It was only after the fire was extinguished that he noticed various officials, such as then Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh and then Internal Security Forces chief Ali Hamdan, at the scene.

Toubaili explained the steps that he took when he first started combating the blaze at the blast site, saying that the firefighters made their way from the vehicles at the outskirts of the crater and made their way in.

“My division did not retrieve any corpses, but it saved four wounded victims,” he stated.

The victims were retrieved from the Byblos building overlooking the crater caused by the explosion.

He said that they were employees at the building and that they suffered minor injuries.

The next witness to take the stand was a confidential witness whose identity remained hidden.

He appeared before the courtroom via video-conference from Beirut and recounted the details of how he and his family reacted to news of their relative's injury in the attack.

One of the victims of the assassination was his brother.

The witness was working in the southern city of Sidon at the time of the attack.

One of his work colleagues informed him that his brother, who used to work in Beirut, was wounded in the blast.

The witness then headed to Beirut to find out the fate of his brother.

The witness's family found out that the victim was being operated on the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

He underwent one operation to treat wounds he sustained in the attack, but he died as he was undergoing a second operation.

The STL session was adjourned to 11:30 am Beirut time on Wednesday.

Five witnesses of the assassination gave their testimonies last week and others are scheduled to give their testimonies starting on Monday.

The February 2005 seafront blast killed 22 people including Hariri and wounded 226, leading to the establishment by the United Nations Security Council of the STL in 2007.

Although the attack was initially blamed on four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals, the court in 2011 issued arrest warrants against Badreddine, 52, Salim Ayyash, 50, Hussein Oneissi, 39, and Assad Sabra, 37, all members of Hizbullah.

The four suspects were indicted in 2011 with plotting the attack, but have not been arrested. A fifth, Hassan Habib Merhi, was charged late last year in the case and is also still at large.