Lebanese men watch the opening of the trial in absentia of four members of the Hezbollah Shiite movement accused of murdering former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri in 2005 at a cafe in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on January 16, 2014 (AFP Photo/Mahmoud Zayyat )

 

 

The website of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon shows the pictures of four men wanted for the assassination of statesman Rafik al-Hariri in this file image of a screen capture made in Singapore July 29, 2011. Nine years after the assassination of Hariri, the trial of four men accused of his killing opens on January 16, 2014. But the defendants are on the run, bombers are back on Beirut streets and a new era of justice which the trial was meant to introduce to Lebanon remains elusive. Hariri and 21 other people were killed on the Beirut seafront in February 2005, the deadliest of a series of attacks against critics of Syria’s military dominance in Lebanon. REUTERS/Special Tribunal for Lebanon/Handout/Files

 

 

Candles are lit near a statue of Lebanon’s assassinated former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in front of the government palace in Beirut January 16, 2014. The candles were lit to mark the beginning of the trial in absentia in The Hague on Thursday of the four suspects accused of killing Hariri, nine years after the bomb attack which killed the Lebanese statesman and 21 others.

 

 

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri (C) is seen at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague January 16, 2014. Saad al-Hariri says he is now ready to share power with his rivals Hezbollah if that’s what it takes to help Lebanon finally form a government after nine months of political deadlock. Picture taken January 16, 2014. To match INTERVIEW LEBANON-GOVERNMENT/HARIRI REUTERS/Dalati Nohra/Handout via Reuters

 

 

Nearly nine years after the truck bomb assassination of Hariri shook the Middle East and awakened the seeds of Sunni-Shiite hatreds, an international tribunal begins the long awaited trial of four Hezbollah suspects Thursday. The men have not been arrested, and the Hague-based court will try them in absentia in the first such trial since World War II. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

 

 

Prosecutor Norman Farrell of Canada takes notes on the first day of the delayed trial into the murder of former Lebanese Lebanese premier Rafiq Haririo at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague on January 16, 2014 (AFP Photo/Toussaint Kluiters )