Following the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a billboard demanding “the truth” was erected in downtown Beirut. It came with a digital counter tracking the number of days since the murder. As the tally approached 1,000 days, the three-digit billboard counter was set to run out of room. In late 2007, the sign was expanded to include an extra digit. In 2009, after the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague with the task of investigating and prosecuting Hariri’s killers, the billboard’s tagline was changed to “Time of Justice” and the counter reset to zero.
The number is well into four digits again. Nearly 6,000 days have passed since the assassination, but justice has not been served. The truth about who killed Hariri has been firmly established by the court, but in Lebanon, where the verdict needs to be implemented, the wheels of justice do not grind. As with so many political murders there, no one has been held accountable for his death.
