Hariri killing: Hezbollah man gets five life terms in prison

The UN-backed Lebanon Tribunal yesterday sentenced a Hezbollah member convicted of conspiring to kill former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in a 2005 bombing to five terms of life imprisonment. Salim Jamil Ayyash was found guilty in August of homicide and committing a terrorist act over the deaths of Hariri and 21 others in the attack on Beirut's waterfront. The trial was conducted in absentia and Ayyash remains at large. Three alleged accomplices were acquitted due to insufficient evidence. Hariri's assassination plunged Lebanon into what was then its worst crisis since its 1975-90 civil war, setting the stage for years of confrontation between rival political forces.

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