Lebanon urges UN to find funds to keep Hariri trial alive

Lebanon urges UN to find funds to keep Hariri trial alive

Lebanon yesterday urged the United Nations to urgently consider "alternative means“ to fund an UN-backed court on its ex-premier Rafic Hariri's murder that may close over a cash crunch. "Taking into account the ongoing acute crises that Lebanon suffers from... (we) would be grateful to Your Excellency for urgently exploring different and alternative means of financing,“ the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, caretaker prime minister Hassan Diab wrote in a letter to UN chief Antonio Guterres. The STL, set up to try suspects in the 2005 killing of Hariri, said this week it risks closure by the end of July without a cash injection. The court based in the Netherlands on Thursday cancelled the opening of a new trial of a convicted suspect that had been set for June 16 "due to lack of funds“. The STL is estimated to have cost between $600 million and $1 billion since it opened in 2009. It draws 51 percent of its budget from donor countries and the rest from Lebanon, which is grappling with its deepest economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. The World Bank said this week that Lebanon's financial downturn is likely to rank among the world's worst since the