Beirut - 28 February 2009
1. Wide pan of Beirut cityscape
2. Ein El Mraiseh street, site of explosion that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
3. Mid of Rafik Hariri statue
4. Mid of damage to building
5. Memorial flame where Hariri was assassinated
6. Set up of Member of Parliament Aatef Majdalani in his office
7. Close of photograph featuring Majdalani and Hariri
8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic): Aatef Majdalani, Lebanese legislator from the Future Movement bloc:
" The start of the international tribunal is the beginning of the saving of Lebanon and the start of the international tribunal is the beginning of the end of the political assassination."
9. Cutaway Hariri pin on Majdalani's lapel
10. SOUNDBITE (Arabic): Aatef Majdalani, Lebanese legislator from the Future Movement bloc:
" When the slain Prime Minister President Rafik Hariri was assassinated, the Syrian regime was in Lebanon and Lebanon was under the Syrian hegemony. The entire security was under their hands and that is why the international investigation committee pointed its accusation against the regime. I think that the tribunal should be able to try any suspect or criminal."
11. Tilt down exterior of Al-Amin mosque in central Beirut
12. Sign indicating "1475" days since Hariri's assassination
13. Various of Hariri's grave
14. Wide of Lebanese justice minister, Ibrahim Najjar, in his office
15. Cutaway close-up of Lebanese flag
16. SOUNDBITE (English): Ibrahim Najjar, Lebanese Justice Minister:
" The tribunal will be really independent and I think that, at least as far as Lebanese politicians are concerned, we have no intention whatsoever to interfere with the tribunal and its independence. This is really the way we see the tribunal functioning - with independence and capacity and only in order to find out the truth and to give their verdict."
17. Cutaway camera lens
18. SOUNDBITE (English): Ibrahim Najjar, Lebanese Justice Minister:
" Lebanon has really shocked with too many assassinations. I would say since more than 30 even 40 years. And it is about time now to terminate all that processes. We have to know who did what and this will be very benefit for us."
FILE: Beirut - 14 March 2005
19. Pan across protest crowd, protesters holding Lebanese flags
20. Mid of posters featuring Lebanese security chiefs being held up
Beirut - 28 February 2009
21. Set up of Samar Al-Hajj, wife of detained Brigadier General Ali Hajj
22. Portrait of Brigadier General Ali Hajj
23. SOUNDBITE (Arabic): Samar Al-Hajj, Wife of detained Brigadier General Ali Hajj:
" We have been detained illegally for three and a half years. There is no existence for any law that can justify the detention of freedom. The detention is justified by a non-existent authority, in an illegal prison which does not exist on the prisons' map in Lebanon and does not relate to the chief of police as other prisons. If we want to speak legally we should not go to The Hague, otherwise they can take them (the four pro-Syria generals) in an arbitrary way, exceeding all the protocols and keep them there until the end of the parliamentarian elections."
FILE: Beirut - 15 February 2005
24. Various of aftermath of explosion which killed Hariri, firefighters tackling blazing vehicle wreckage
Investigators have pored over evidence for four years - a human tooth found at the bombing site, a suicide truck that was stolen in Japan and made its way to Lebanon, reams of phone records and hundreds of interviews.
Now the focus in one of the Mideast's most dramatic political assassinations is shifting to prosecution, with the convening on Sunday of an international tribunal on the slaying of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Despite the start of proceedings in the Netherlands, it is still not known who will be accused in the suicide truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 other people on a seaside street in Beirut on February 14, 2005.
Also unknown is the most politically explosive question - whether the proceedings will implicate Syria's government, which many Lebanese believe was behind the murder of a man who led opposition to the long Syrian military occupation of Lebanon.
Syria has denied any involvement.
The tribunal was welcomed on Saturday by Lebanese lawmaker Aatef Majdalani, of the Future Movement bloc, who said it would be the saving of Lebanon.
Majdalani said that Syria would be in the spotlight as Lebanon was under the Syrian regime at the time of the assassination.
The United Nations Security Council had to impose the mixed Lebanese-international Special Tribunal after Lebanon's parliament was too divided to approve it.
But Lebanese Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar insisted that the tribunal would be truly independent.
Most likely the first defendants before the court will be four pro-Syria generals who led Lebanon's police, intelligence service and an elite army unit at the time of the assassination.
They are the only people in custody, though they have not been formally charged.
The wife of one of the four officers detained, Brigadier General Ali Hajj, on Saturday called their detention "illegal".
Some in Lebanon doubt the court will ever bring out the full truth, believing it might avoid digging deep to ensure Syria does not react by stirring up trouble in Lebanon and other parts of the region.
Trials could also further polarise Lebanon's politics, feeding the power struggle between pro- and anti-Syria factions.
Administrators have said the tribunal will take up to five years to finish its work, and the top UN prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare of Canada, said in a statement on Saturday that it will be thorough.
As prime minister, Hariri, a billionaire businessman, was credited with rebuilding downtown Beirut after the 1975-90 civil war, and with trying to limit Syria's influence.
In a country known for political assassinations, his killing stands out for its far-reaching impact and set off huge anti-Syrian street protests in Lebanon and intense international pressure which forced Damascus to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon a few months later, ending nearly three decades of military domination.
But his death also threw Lebanon into turmoil.
Anti-Syria factions supported by the West won control of the government but were unable to exert any authority while locked in a struggle with Syria's allies, led by the Hezbollah movement.
The first UN investigator into the killing, Detlev Mehlis of Germany, said the assassination plot's complexity suggested a role by the Syrian intelligence services and its pro-Syria Lebanese counterpart.
But the two chief investigators who followed Mehlis have worked quietly and have not named any individuals or countries as suspects.
Last April (2008), Bellemare said investigators had evidence Hariri's killing was done by a "criminal network" also linked to a series of bombings and shootings that have killed seven anti-Syria figures and caused other deaths since Hariri's assassination.
The UN team worked under tight security for fear of attacks or intimidation, living in fortified compounds in Beirut and travelling in heavily protected motorcades.
The team also kept tight control of information about the investigation.
One piece of evidence is the tooth of the suicide bomber.
Forensic examinations determined the truck's driver was a man in his 20s who was not from Lebanon, according to Bellemare's predecessor as top investigator, Serge Brammertz of Belgium.
Investigators interviewed hundreds of people, including the presidents of Lebanon and Syria.
They acquired records listing more than 5 billion telephone calls and mobile phone text messages.
They determined the truck used in the bombing was stolen in Kanagawa, Japan, in October 2004 and purchased two months later near the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
The probe has also seen numerous twists.
Husam Husam, a Syrian barber and self-proclaimed intelligence operative, at first implicated Syrian officials in testimony to investigators.
Then he left Lebanon for Syria and appeared on TV, recanting and saying the Hariri family paid him to frame Syria.
Lebanon's government dismissed the claim.
Another purported Syrian intelligence officer, Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq, was at first said to be a key witness, then a suspect - then he vanished while under house arrest in France.
A Lebanese man who was questioned about the sale of cell phone chips allegedly used for communicating in the bombing was found dead in what was ruled a car accident.
Syria's interior minister, Brigadier General Ghazi Kenaan, died in his Damascus office in late 2005 about a month after speaking with investigators.
Syrian officials said he shot himself to death, but some in Lebanon believe he was killed.
Kenaan ran Lebanon for two decades until 2003.
