Lebanese government approves UN draft on Hariri tribunal

The Lebanese government approved on Monday a United Nations draft setting up an international tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri.

Official sources said the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora would now send the draft back to New York and wait for the final text on the special court to return.

"Here we are today on the road to revealing the truth and achieving justice through the court with an international character that will be formed to stop this series of terrorist and criminal acts," Siniora told reporters after the meeting.

Siniora, whose anti-Syrian majority dominates the cabinet, convened the session Monday over the President Emile Lahoud's objections and despite resignations of six pro-Syrian ministers, five of them Shiite Muslims, who quit in a dispute with the prime minister.

But the resignations cast a shadow over the decision because Shiites were not represented in the Cabinet as required by Lebanon's delicate distribution of political power among its Christian and Muslim sects.

Hariri was killed in a truck bombing last year that was blamed by supporters on Syria.

Lebanese minister close to president to quit governmentLebanon's pro-Syrian environment minister resigned Monday, bringing to six the number of cabinet members to quit the Western-backed government after the collapse of unity talks.

Environment Minister Yaacoub Sarraf, joins five Shi'ite Muslim ministers who quit Saturday the half-Christian, half-Muslim Cabinet.

Lebanon's National News Agency said Sarraf submitted his resignation in a letter to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

"I don't see myself belonging to any constitutional authority in which an entire sect is absent," Sarraf said in his letter of resignation, according to the agency. "So I am tendering my resignation from your government."

With Sarraf's resignation, a quarter of the 24-member Cabinet had quit. His move makes it difficult for the Cabinet to govern, but legally it still has the necessary two-thirds quorum to meet and make decisions, although doubts may be raised about the constitutionality of any actions it takes because it lacks Shi'ite members.

Sarraf is an independent but is allied with the pro-Syrian Lahoud and Hezbollah. He is Greek Orthodox - Lebanon's second largest Christian sect after Maronite Catholics.

The move came hours before Siniora was to convene his cabinet to discuss a United Nations-drafted statute for a special court to try the killers of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Lebanon received the statute from the UN on Friday, Lebanese officials said.

The personal representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Geir Pederson, handed a copy of the draft to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in Beirut.

Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005, in a suicide truck bombing that killed 22 other people. The killing, which sparked large anti-Syrian protests that forced Syria to end three decades of military presence in Lebanon, is under investigation by a UN commission led by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz.

The UN probe's interim findings have implicated senior Lebanese and Syrian security officials. Syria has denied any role.

The move indicated that major powers on the UN Security Council had bridged differences that had delayed an agreement on the workings and structure of the court, the officials said.

They did not reveal details of the draft but said some Russian objections to an earlier draft had been taken on board.

One official source said the tribunal, to be made up of Lebanese and foreign judges, would have no power to try or question heads of states as the killing would not be defined as a "crime against humanity" or a "terrorist attack."

The next step is for the Lebanese government to approve the draft and ask parliament to pass it into law, officials said.

The draft arrived in Lebanon at a time of heightened political tension with rival leaders debating opposition demands for more say in the Western-backed cabinet.

Siniora's has requested that the Cabinet discuss the proposal to establish an international tribunal to try suspects in Hariri's assassination.

Lahoud warned Sunday against holding the meeting, saying in a letter to Siniora that the Cabinet had lost its legitimacy when all five Shi'ite Muslim ministers submitted their resignations. He cited a part of the constitution stating, "all sects should be justly represented in the Cabinet."

But Siniora has insisted on holding the meeting at noon Monday.

Four Lebanese generals loyal to Lahoud, in charge of the country's main security organs at the time, are currently in jail awaiting trial. Their lawyers say they are innocent.

The withdrawal by the five ministers Saturday left the Shi'ites, the largest single sect in Lebanon, out of the government. Sarraf's resignation strengthens the Shiites' bid for a larger presence in the Cabinet, now made up of Christians, Sunni Muslims and Druze in the Cabinet. It also reduces the sectarian nature of the dispute.

Hezbollah recently threatened to call mass protests Nov. 13 with the aim of bringing down the government unless the Shiites obtained one-third of Cabinet portfolios plus one. That would effectively give them veto power because Cabinet decisions require approval by two-thirds of ministers.

The militant group has since said that it would not necessarily call protests immediately and that other steps could be taken first, though it did give specifics on the actions it might take.

	Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora waving before a meeting with rival political leaders at parliament in Beirut on Friday. (Reuters)