Report: STL Trial to Start Next Autumn

The trial at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination case will start next autumn, informed sources told An Nahar daily published Friday.

The sources hinted that both the prosecution and the defense have completed the preparations for the start of trial.

The STL announced in February that a March 25 provisional date for the start of the in absentia trial of four Hizbullah members indicted in Hariri's Feb. 2005 murder in a massive car bombing on the Beirut seafront had been postponed.

But the court hasn't yet announced the new tentative date set by pre-trial Judge Daniel Fransen.

The postponement came upon the request of defense lawyers who said prosecutors had not yet given them all the relevant information to prepare their cases.

The lawyers representing Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Hussein Oneissi, and Assad Sabra, have also not been able to access prosecution material "due to technical issues," the judge said in February.

The STL issued warrants against the four men in June 2011 and Interpol issued a "red notice" for the suspects, but so far none has been arrested.

Set up by a U.N. resolution in 2007 at Lebanon's request to probe Hariri's death, the STL is the first court of its kind to deal with terrorism as a distinct crime.

It is also the only current international tribunal that can try suspects in absentia.