Lebanon marks 10th anniv. of former PM Hariri assassination

PanARMENIAN.Net - Rallies and prayers of remembrance will take place in Lebanon on the 10th anniversary of the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, BBC News reports.

He was killed by a massive car bomb in the capital, Beirut, along with 21 other people.Hariri's death led to mass protests against Syria which eventually withdrew its troops from Lebanon.

However an international tribunal indicted five members of Lebanon's Shia movement, Hezbollah, for the attack.

Hezbollah denied it was responsible, rejecting the charges as political, and the defendants remain at large.

Thousands of people are expected to gather for a memorial at the site of Hariri's grave in Martyrs Square in Beirut - where religious leaders gathered to pay their respects on Friday, Feb 13.

"Lebanon lost an exceptional leader who had upheld the country on the global map and regained its distinctive place in the heart of the Arab world, after years of a doomed [civil] war," said Prime Minister Tammam Salam.

"We salute the memory of the man who dedicated his life entirely to achieving Lebanon's security, sovereignty, pride and prosperity."

Hariri's son - former Prime Minister Saad Hariri - will address Saturday's event after arriving in the country overnight.

Lebanon has been through many upheavals - but if a single event stands out as a clear turning point, it was Hariri's shocking death in an explosion that was clearly the product of a complex conspiracy involving powerful quarters, the BBC says.

He had fallen out sharply with the Syrians, so many thousands of Lebanese instinctively blamed Damascus - and following huge demonstrations they pulled their forces out, ending a military presence lasting nearly 30 years.

The turning point that his death undoubtedly was at the time, has meanwhile long been lost in the dangerously fragmented political situation in a country desperately vulnerable to the fallout from a civil war now raging in Syria, our correspondent adds - far worse than anything Lebanon itself produced.