The attack killed 22 others. Years later, no one is formally charged. For the first time, a UN sponsored court will investigate an individual crime. UN tribunals usually indicts for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.

There are indications that the Syrian regime was involved in the crime. In turn, the Syrian regime rejected the accusation. The truth might be closer now. Four years have been necessary for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, commissioned by UN resolution 1757, to investigate the crime that occurred on 14 February 2005 . Hariri’s assassination has been one of the Middle East’s most controversial political killings.

Most striking is that no one has been formally indicted for the crime. Months after the attack, four Lebanese generals had been arrested but not a single one indicted. These generals had been considered pro-Syria: the then director of General Security, Jamil Sayed, the former head of the Internal Security Forces, Ali Hajj, former head of military intelligence, Raymond Azar, and former head of the presidential guard, Mustafa Hamdan.

There were two witnesses that implicated Syria in the case. One recanted his statement later. The whereabouts of the second one is unclear. Despite four years of investigations which have included hundreds of questionings, including those of the presidents of Syria and Lebanon, and a review of five million phone calls and SMS – no one has been formally charged with the crime.

Among the strong evidence that surfaced during the course of the investigations is the discovery of a tooth that did not belong to any of the victims. This led to the conclusion that the truck loaded with more than 1,000 kilograms of explosives was driven by a suicide bomber. What is even more uncanny is that the truck was stolen in Japan in October 2004.

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Via BBC