The lingering mysteries around Hariri's assassination and Al Assad's alleged role

Most of the suspects have been killed, with some suggesting an 'inside job' by the Syrian regime

Clockwise from top left: Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Assad Hassan Sabra, Salim Jamil Ayyash and Hussein Hassan Oneissi, the Hezbollah suspects indicted in the Rafic Hariri assassination case. AFP

Who planned and ordered the assassination of Rafic Hariri on that fateful Valentine’s Day 20 years ago? Who were the masterminds behind the attack that sent shockwaves across Lebanon’s political landscape and beyond?

A series of questions remains unanswered and many of those who might have known the truth have taken their secrets to the grave. Almost all the defendants in the Hariri assassination case have been killed under murky circumstances.

The most recent was Salim Jamil Ayyash, a senior Hezbollah operative convicted in absentia by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in 2020 for his role in the 2005 killing of the former prime minister, along with two other Hezbollah members.

Mr Ayyash was reportedly killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria in November during the Hezbollah-Israel conflict. The group has not confirmed his death. He was among the last key suspects of the Hariri assassination still alive.

His killing followed a series of assassinations targeting Lebanese and Syrian figures suspected of involvement in the bombing that claimed the life of the Lebanese-Saudi billionaire and 22 others in central Beirut.

This pattern has fuelled suspicions of an “inside job” by Syria's former regime, known for eliminating those who were seen as a threat to its grip on power, or who could expose sensitive information.

Syria’s former president Bashar Al Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, had a strained relationship with Mr Hariri, a key Sunni leader who opposed the extension of then-president Emile Lahoud’s term. Mr Lahoud was a close ally of both the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.

“All the suspects in the Hariri case were killed, except the Assad family members,” analyst Michael Young told The National from Beirut. "It is certainly very suspicious."

He recalled how Mr Al Assad was deeply unsettled by the UN-led tribunal, referencing media leaks from a meeting in 2007 between then-UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and the Syrian president. During the talks, Mr Al Assad reportedly argued that the situation in Lebanon would deteriorate if the tribunal was established.

Fearing instability

Despite such warnings, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, the UN’s chief investigator into Mr Hariri’s assassination, pressed ahead with scrutinising Syria’s alleged role. In 2005, his inquiry led him to question several senior Syrian officials, either for their alleged involvement or because they had information that could assist the investigation.

Among them was Ghazi Kenaan, Syria’s former interior minister and head of military intelligence in Lebanon from 1982 to 2002, who had been cooperating with the UN investigator. Weeks after being heard, he was found dead in his office. Authorities declared it a suicide.

The next to fall was Maj Gen Assef Shawkat, Mr Al Assad’s brother-in-law and former head of military intelligence. He had been identified as a suspect in Mr Mehlis’s first draft report, which was mistakenly released, containing the names of those allegedly involved. The official version later replaced those names with the phrase “senior Lebanese and Syrian officials”.

Maj Gen Shakwat was killed in a 2012 bombing at the National Security Office in Damascus.

Another key figure, Maj Gen Jameh Jameh, a Syrian military intelligence general who oversaw a notorious torture centre in Beirut during Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, was also questioned by Mr Mehlis in 2005. He was killed in 2013 in Deir Ezzor, with Syrian state TV reporting he died “while carrying out his national duties to defend” the country.

Two years later, Rustum Ghazaleh, Syria’s last chief of intelligence in Lebanon and another suspect in the Hariri case, died in Damascus in unknown circumstances.

On December 15, 2005, Mr Mehlis resigned as the chief investigator and returned to Berlin. He was replaced by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz. From that point, the Syria lead was never fully pursued.

“Politically, it became clear that no one at the UN actually wanted an investigation on Mr Hariri's assassination that could trigger instability in Lebanon,” Mr Young said.

In 2020, the STL convicted Hezbollah operative Mr Ayyash for the assassination. In 2022, it convicted two more Hezbollah members, Hassan Habib Merhi and Hussein Oneissi, on appeal. Both remain at large.

Despite the fall of the Assad regime in December in a swift offensive led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, experts say the upheaval is unlikely to bring new revelations in the case.

“I don't have any hope," said Mr Young. "Most of the officers have been killed and the only key figures still alive seem to be Bashar" and his brother Maher Al Assad, he added. "They’re not going to testify about the Hariri affair. Unfortunately, nothing was done between 2005 and 2008 – when it was time."

Ronnie Chatah, whose father, Mohamad Chatah – a key adviser to Hariri’s son, former prime minister Saad Hariri – was killed in a bomb attack in 2013, also expressed scepticism about the prospect of accountability in Lebanon.

"Two decades ago, two things were impossible to imagine: the fall of the Assad regime and a significantly weakened Hezbollah," he said. "The climate that prevented Lebanon from moving forwards after the Syrian intelligence withdrawal in 2005 has now changed – but too much damage has already been done."