By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, March 9 (Reuters) – Lebanon and the United Nations are close to completing plans for a tribunal to prosecute suspects in the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri and others, a Lebanese official said on Thursday.
The court was set to be located outside Lebanon and headed by a non-Lebanese judge, but would still have "a significant Lebanese presence," Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh told a news conference. Hamadeh spoke to U.N. officials on a trip to New York and Washington with Druze opposition leader Walid Jumblatt. Hamadeh narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in a car bombing in October 2004 and is the uncle of Gibran Tueni, an anti-Syrian journalist murdered by a bomb in December.