STL: Al-Akhbar, Ibrahim al-Amin Guilty of Contempt

A special U.N. court set up to try the killers of former prime minister Rafik Hariri on Friday convicted al-Akhbar newspaper and its editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin of contempt on charges of publishing information about confidential witnesses in the case.

"I find both the accused guilty," said Special Tribunal for Lebanon judge Nicola Lettieri.

A new hearing will be held Monday to discuss sentencing, he said.

Al-Amin and the pro-Hizbullah al-Akhbar newspaper each faced a contempt of court charge after they ran two articles in January 2013 with the names and photographs of 32 witnesses in its Arabic print and online editions.

The articles were entitled "STL Leaks: The Prosecution's Surprise Witnesses" and "The STL Witness List: Why We Published".

Several witnesses afterwards feared for their safety after the information was published, Judge Lettieri said at the hearing held at the court's fortress-like headquarters just outside The Hague.

The witnesses were worried that the information would be widely circulated in print and online, not only as STL witnesses, but also as witnesses "whose testimonies would be used to incriminate Hizbullah," the judge said.

"The tribunal puts in balance the freedom of the press and the need to ensure the integrity of the tribunal's work," said Lettieri.

"But freedom of press cannot be used as an impenetrable shield," he added.

Hariri and 22 others, including a suspected suicide bomber, died in a massive car bomb blast on the Beirut waterfront on February 14, 2005.

Five suspected members of Hizbullah were originally indicted by the court and their trial in absentia opened in January 2014 last year.

However, the court earlier this month quashed the case against one of the accused, Hizbullah military commander Mustafa Badreddine, who is believed to have died in May in the Syrian conflict.

The other accused are being tried in absentia.

Earlier this year the STL on appeal acquitted senior al-Jadeed TV journalist Karma Khayyat in a similar case involving the alleged publication of witness names in the highly-sensitive trial.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has dismissed the tribunal as a U.S.-Israeli plot, and vowed that none of the suspects will ever be caught.