Ayash was convicted not in his presence in the assassination of the former Lebanese PM • He was born in a village from which many terrorists came and grew up in areas controlled by Hezbollah • Did Lebanon find partial justice?

• Judged not in his presence. Salim Ayash

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  Archive - AP

Since February 14, 2005, when then-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated, the country of cedars is thirsty for justice. Although the citizens themselves took care of the "cedar revolution" that brought the Syrian forces out of Lebanon, at the end of 30 years - they did not find justice in this, and sought the culprits in the assassination of the prime minister who tried to bring Lebanon back to normal.

Following the ruling in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, 15 and a half years after the assassination, it can be said that the Lebanese have found justice, albeit in part. Hezbollah's military commander, Mustafa Bader a-Din, who was involved in the assassination, was assassinated in 2016 in Damascus by the Iranians. Whereas only one of the four defendants convicted in their absence was found guilty of Hariri murder and other charges.

The same culprit is Salim Ayash, who was born on November 10, 1963 in the village of Haruf in southern Lebanon. He spent his childhood both in the Ayash family's residential complex in Harof and in a building on a-Jamus Street in the Hadath neighborhood in southern Beirut - an area in the Lebanese capital that is very much identified with Hezbollah, and especially the Dahiya district. It seems that his childhood years influenced him to become a terrorist operative, since as early as the 1970s, Palestinian terrorists had been active, as well as activists of the Lebanese Communist Party against Israel.

Those who later used Haruf as a center of activity were the Shiite terrorist organizations, Amal and later Hezbollah. The village boasts about 60 casualties in battles against Israel over the years, as well as many wounded. During the Second Lebanon War, the village of Haruf was also the target of Israeli attacks, due to the presence of Lebanese army and Hezbollah forces there.

More on this topic:

• Only one of the four defendants in the Hariri assassination case was convicted

• Today: Judgment in the trial to eliminate Rafik Hariri

Like the other three candidates - Hassan Marai, Hussein Onaysi and Assad Sabra, all of whom were acquitted - Ayash was also tried in The Hague in his absence. He was prosecuted on counts of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act, committing a terrorist act, premeditated murder of Rafik Hariri in preliminary planning through the use of explosives; In the premeditated murder of 21 additional people in the preliminary planning by using explosives, and in the attempted premeditated murder of 226 people in the preliminary planning by the use of explosives.