The U.N. Security Council has given a green light to keep the U.N.-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri operating and funded for at least this year.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to the council circulated Friday that the president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Judge Ivana Hrdličková, informed him in November that its work wouldn't be finished by the expiration of its mandate Feb. 28.

A U.N.-backed tribunal sentenced a member of the Hizbullah group to life imprisonment Friday for his involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The defendant, Salim Ayyash, has never been arrested and was not in court at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon for Friday's sentencing hearing.

The killer of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri will be sentenced on December 11, the Netherlands-based tribunal that convicted him said, with prosecutors asking for a life sentence.

The death of Rafik Hariri is to many Lebanese what the JFK assassination was to Americans four decades earlier -- everybody remembers what they were doing when the news broke.

The special tribunal trying the four suspects accused of the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri is expected to deliver its verdict on Tuesday.

A UN-backed court is to deliver its judgement Tuesday on four suspected Hezbollah members tried in absentia for former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri's murder in a 2005 Beirut car bombing.

A UN-backed tribunal will hand down its verdict Tuesday on the 2005 murder of former premier Rafik Hariri, two weeks after the Lebanese capital was rocked by a massive explosion.

Resigned Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi stressed on Monday that his “hand is extended to all sides” in wake of his list's victory in the municipal polls in the northern city of Tripoli, reiterating his commitment to the values of the March 14 coalition.

He said during a press conference: “We voiced our rejection of the control of one political party of Tripoli and the control of the Syrian regime allies of the city's municipality.”

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan lamented on Saturday the current state of affairs in Lebanon, vowing that the Lebanese people will persevere against challenges.

He said on the eleventh anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri: “Your son Saad has followed in your footsteps in maintaining civil peace and stability.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat expressed his concern over the fate of Lebanon given the regional developments and their impact on the country, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Saturday on the eve of the eleventh anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

He voiced to the daily his fear that the “face of Lebanon's democracy would change in wake of the new balance that is being devised in the region.”