Alwaght- The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon fined pro-Hezbollah newspaper al-Akhbar 26,000 euros on Monday for knowingly and wilfully interfering with the administration of justice.
Editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin was fined 20,000 euros and the paper 6,000 euros by Contempt Jude Nicola Lettieri who announced the sentence and demanded that the fined be paid by Sept. 30.
Both were found guilty in July on charges of contempt of court based on their publication of the names of 32 allegedly secret tribunal witnesses in 2013. STL had begun its task of accusing Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese men for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Four Hezbollah members are being tried in absentia.
Amin and al-Akhbar have the right to appeal to the judgement and sentence.
Amicus Prosecutor Kenneth Scott labelled Amin’s disclosure as “an obstruction that goes to the very heart of the ability of this tribunal to do its work.”
Scott had requested a much tougher sentence for Amin, requesting that he receive a 75,000 euro fine and serve two years in prison. He also suggested that the newspaper be fined 100 euros for each day the articles remained on its website.
An article published after the sentence on al-Akhbar deplored the decision.
“Pointing its arrows on those who liberated Lebanon from the Israeli occupation and those who threaten the security of the Zionist entity may not be the most notable achievement of the ‘court of sectarian sedition.’ Rather, what this court has done is obliterate whatever is left of the credibility of ‘international justice,’” it read.
Amin himself responded defiantly, asserting that his pro-resistance stance will not waver before conspiracies.
“What happened yesterday, was a prelude to a long tough battle… We stand with resolve, fearlessly, and bearing the patience of him whose entire body was pierced with arrows. They will find us, every time, sturdier and clearer and more open in confronting them with every means that this profession provides… to expose their games and forgery,” he argued.
Since the beginning of the trial, Amin has articulated his views of the tribunal clarifying that it is part of a Western conspiracy to disrepute Hezbollah.
“I personally will resist. I view them like Israel, as a tool of the occupation. Let them come. Let them seize my assets and the properties of the newspaper,” he said in a recent TV interview.
Hezbollah has expressed its solidarity with the newspaper.
The head of Parliament’s Media and Telecommunications Committee MP Hasan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah member told reporters that “the STL decision indicates the status the tribunal has reached which became a tool to blackmail the Lebanese and intimidate them.
The court has been criticized for hunting down journalists and is believed to have been formed for the sole purpose of pinning the crime on Hezbollah instead of pursuing the real perpetrators. Attempts to drive the paper into bankruptcy are also viewed as an assault on the freedom of press.
