BEIRUT: With the Special Tribunal for Lebanon concluding proceedings for the year last week, those involved in the case say much has been achieved but there’s a long way to go. The Tribunal was established in 2009 after the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission – created to investigate the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri – concluded its work. Yet proceedings for the trial did not begin until Jan. 2014 when indictments were submitted following the completion of investigations.

Ultimately, the five men charged with the crime were Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hassan Merhi, Hussein Oneissi, and Assad Sabra, all Hezbollah affiliates.

But the accused parties are being tried in absentia for their roles in orchestrating and carrying out the attack that killed Hariri and 21 others and wounded a further 200 in the explosion near Downtown Beirut. Proceedings against Badreddine were halted when it was established that he was killed in May this year in Syria.

In March 2011, then-president of the STL Antonio Cassese said in an annual report the trial would be able to “complete the core mandate of the Tribunal within a total of six years.”

Now in its seventh year, it remains unclear when any final conclusions will be reached. However, STL spokesperson Wajed Ramadan told The Daily Star that 2016 had seen “significant progress.”

She particularly highlighted the advancement of the prosecution in laying out the second phase of its case. This, Ramadan explained, focuses on the predatory acts undertaken by the five accused and their co-conspirators in 2004 and 2005.

Another major development from the last 12 months was the March acquittal of an initial sentence against Lebanese media outlet Al-Jadeed for interfering in the case. The outlet was charged over broadcasts of allegedly confidential information about a testifying witness.

The editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar – the Lebanese, Hezbollah affiliated newspaper – was convicted by the tribunal of witness intimidation in a separate side-case.

In 2013, the newspaper published names and photographs of previously undisclosed individuals who were purportedly testifying in the case. The paper has a record of being opposed to the tribunal.

When asked about what could be expected for 2017, STL spokesperson Wajed Ramadan said it was difficult to say for sure what progress would be made. “It is difficult to predict what will happen in an ongoing judicial proceeding,” he said. “Everything is [contingent] on the nature of the proceedings: presentation of evidence, examination and cross examination of witnesses in the courtroom and litigation between the parties.”

Francois Roux, head of the Defense Office, predicted that 2017 would see crucial developments. Yet he said they hinge on the next phases of the prosecution’s case. At the opening of the Tribunal, the prosecution identified three main areas it aimed to focus on throughout the trial.

The first component is an investigation into forensic evidence of the Feb. 14 explosion, related to the “death and injury of victims.” The second aims to present evidence of the preparation of the attack by the five men being tried. The third and final component seeks to examine the evidence used to identify the accused and prove their roles in the conspiracy.

“What happened this year is that the prosecution continued, as it has done in previous years, to call its witnesses who have been cross-examined by the defense,” Roux said. “And now in the last phase, which is the most important phase for the prosecution’s case, we have the telecommunications experts. They should testify in the first part of 2017 certainly.”

The reliance on telecommunications data and experts has formed the bedrock of the prosecution’s case, in-part due to the lack of defendants to question. “No Lebanese government will be able to carry out any arrests, whether in 30 days, 30 years of even 300 years,” Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Hezbollah, said on Lebanese television in 2011.

In this rare sighting, and even more rare commentary on the Hariri assassination, Nasrallah affirmed, “[Hezbollah rejects] the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, along with each and every void accusation it has issued, which to us is the equivalent of an attack against Hezbollah.”

Though Roux insisted he could not speak for all the counselors representing the interests of the different defendants, he agreed that the situation posed considerable barriers. “The defense does not have contact with the accused, so of course their work is much more difficult. That’s clear.”

Roux pointed out how the procedures established for the Tribunal, which follows a “common law” framework and differs from the system commonly used in the Lebanese justice system and the nature of the prosecution’s case, has contributed to the lengthiness of proceedings.

Unlike the Lebanese system, the “common law” framework allows for “everything to be discussed.”

Roux explained that since 2014, when proceedings began, “the work of the defense team [has been] to challenge all the evidence gathering techniques presented by the prosecution ... to verify the solidity of the evidence of the prosecution, to contest the credibility [and] the veracity of the evidence.”

Much of the prosecution’s evidence consisted of reams of data from Lebanon’s telecoms companies and innovative methods of tracking the movements of suspects through phone records and cell tower sites. This leaves ample fodder for discussion, clarification and contestation.

Once the prosecution completes the presentation of its evidence, the defense has the option to put in a request calling for the Tribunal to recognize that the prosecution has not succeeded in providing convincing evidence of the guilt of the accused. Otherwise, the defense will present its own case and evidence, which Roux insisted “[would not] last as long as that of the prosecution.”

Despite the ongoing obstacles to a speedy conclusion, Roux viewed the coming year with optimism, “The lead prosecutor indicated that he hopes to complete the presentation of his evidence in 2017,” he added.