Today, Monday, February 14, 2022, the 17th anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who began his life as a worker picking oranges and apples, then became a billionaire, a three-time prime minister, and one of the most prominent figures in the Middle East.

Hariri contributed greatly to the reconstruction of Lebanon after the civil war. His assassination in 2005 constituted a milestone, as the country entered a political crisis after the parties split into loyalists and opposition, each of which received the support of regional parties.

Birth and upbringing

- November 1, 1944: Rafiq Bahaa El-Din Hariri was born in Sidon to a humble family that lived on agriculture, where he began his life by picking citrus fruits.

He completed his secondary education in 1964, then joined the Faculty of Commerce at the Arab University in Beirut, where he studied accounting.

He worked as an accountant so that he could continue his university studies, and as a language proofreader in a local newspaper.

Saudi nationality

He traveled to Saudi Arabia, where he worked as a teacher, then became an auditor in a company.

He began to make a huge fortune in a short period of time, which qualified him to be one of the giants of influential businessmen in the field of construction and architecture.

- In 1978, he obtained citizenship and became Riyadh's envoy in Lebanon at the time. During this period, he purchased the French Oger company and merged it with his company to become "Saudi Oger", which became one of the largest contracting companies in the Arab world.

Due to his professional success, in the early 1980s, he became one of the 100 richest businessmen in the world.

1982: After the Israeli invasion, Hariri put all his capabilities at the disposal of the state to remove the effects of the siege of Beirut, and in the same year he was a "dove of peace" between the various sects to stop the ongoing battles at the time, and he succeeded in reopening Beirut airport.

1987: He actively participated in the Geneva and Lausanne conferences to consolidate the pillars of the Lebanese national accord.

1989: He was one of the major participants in the drafting of the Taif Agreement, which was signed in Saudi Arabia and put an end to the civil war, and led to the settlement of differences between political forces, militias and Lebanese parties.

Reconstruction

Hariri started in the field of business administration until he became one of the most famous businessmen, and established several international companies in Saudi Arabia, France, the United States and Luxembourg.

Over the years, his empire expanded to include a network of banks and companies in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, in addition to insurance companies, publishing, light industries, and others.

- He undertook the education of 30,000 Lebanese students at home and abroad, and spent millions of dollars to re-highlight the features of the country's social hierarchy.

- The education plan that he adopted facilitated the formation of equal economic classes in the country.

He was donating a lot of his money and investing it internally at a time when no one cared about it.

He received 13 decorations, including the "Legion of Honor with the rank of Knight, British Merit, the Lebanese Cedars with the rank of Commander, King Faisal, the Legion of Honor from Boston University," in addition to a medal from Argentina, and another from France and Italy.

- He was the password holder in opening the doors to his country to the influx of Arab and foreign capital and investments, and encouraging the Gulf states, the United States and Europe to immediately participate in the reconstruction of what was destroyed by the civil war, which cost at the time more than 3 billion dollars.

prime minister

1992: Hariri came to power and assumed the position of Prime Minister.

This was accompanied by peace projects in the region, starting with the Madrid Conference and bilateral and multilateral negotiations, and the new Middle East project that followed, and the role raised for Lebanon in the region after peace.

2004: In the midst of the political crisis that resulted in the extension of the term of President Emile Lahoud under pressure from Syria, Hariri resigned from the premiership, commenting on this, "I submitted my resignation to the government and announced that I would not run in the next government."

- His resignation came amid tension between the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the United Nations, which repeated a call for Damascus to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, which was rejected.

before the assassination

- Basem Al-Sabaa, the former Lebanese MP and minister - who was close to Hariri and an advisor to him - said that the latter did not take into account his security calculations that he "fall at the hands of Lebanese youths from the Shiite sect belonging to Hezbollah."

He added that Hariri lived months before the possibility of the assassination, and spoke about it in his private sessions, and called on his security team to strengthen protection measures and control entry to Koraytem Palace (his place of residence) and wish visitors not to use cellular devices.

Al-Sabaa, a member of the Future Movement and Hariri's advisor, continued - in an article in the newspaper "Nidaa Al-Watan" - that a week before his assassination, the campaign to target Hariri politically reached its maximum limits, and he received a message from an influential security figure that he will have a choice of three: the grave, prison, or departure. He advised him to leave the country and its troubles."

And he added, "In light of the impact of this message and the messages of political violence and direct threat that he heard from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the leaders of his security services in Damascus, the martyred president limited his targeting to the Syrian regime, and based his expectations and measures on this basis, without taking any consideration for the regime's allies in Lebanon. and partisan security organizations affiliated with state agencies.

Al-Sabaa revealed that "the assassination conversations and experiences that passed on Kamal Jumblatt, Bashir Gemayel, Rene Moawad, Mufti Hassan Khaled, Nazem Al-Qadri, Sheikh Subhi Al-Saleh, and other symbols executed by the Syrian regime, were not absent from the deliberations of Koraytem Palace before the February 14 crime."

- He added, "I was among the few besides Prime Minister Hariri who demanded that he be cautious, and his constant response was that caution does not prevent fate... and that Bashar al-Assad would not dare to kill him, and he knows the reaction of the Arabs and the international community...because the end of Hariri means the end of Bashar, and Lebanon." Today, Lebanon changed the seventies and eighties.

Al-Saba pointed out that "his expectations were not correct and his calculations failed him, because there is a hidden page in the assassination book that he was unable to read, the page of assigning a Lebanese group belonging to the Iranian intelligence corps, planning to blow up his convoy and carrying out the operation with an accuracy that surpassed the modern security equipment of the convoy."

assassination incident

February 14, 2005: An explosion occurred at about one o'clock in the Al-Mraiseh area, west of Beirut, which is teeming with economic institutions.

Prime Minister Hariri was assassinated in the explosion in which 1,800 kilograms of TNT was used, along with 21 other people, including Economy Minister Basil Fleihan, who was with him in his car.

The force of the explosion led to the demolition of the St. George Hotel and some surrounding buildings.

According to observers, Hariri was not just a political figure, nor a businessman of high caliber, nor a man of complex international and regional relations. Rather, he was the result of all these qualities that he was able to combine in a rare human composition, in which political action is mixed with personal connections, with the world of businessmen. And wide relations, with the overwhelming popularity, in addition to being the “pomegranate of the balance” for the Lebanese situation, and perhaps the entire regional one.

A few months after his assassination, the International Tribunal for Lebanon was established, which is a criminal offense approved by the Security Council to consider the results of the investigation carried out by the International Commission of Inquiry to identify the perpetrators.

- This court constituted a point of contention between the March 14 team supporting it and the opposition March 8 team, which plunged Lebanon into a political crisis that almost erupted its civil peace.

August 18, 2020: This court convicted, in absentia, Salim Ayyash of the Hariri assassination, and acquitted 3 others, Hussein Oneissi, Assad Sabra and Hassan Marei, for lack of evidence.

December 11, 2020: The same court issued its decision with 5 life sentences against Ayyash for plotting to kill Hariri.

"The Trial Chamber is of the opinion that the maximum sentence for each of the five offences, namely life imprisonment, should be imposed at the same time," Australian Judge David Ray said as he read out the verdict.

He added that Ayyash - whom the prosecution list describes as a military leader in the Lebanese Hezbollah - committed a terrorist act that caused mass murder, indicating that he had a vital role in the success of the bombing operation that targeted the convoy of the late Prime Minister in central Beirut on February 14, 2005 .

Judge Janet Nosworthy described the crimes committed by Ayyash as very serious, explaining that he had a pivotal role in the attack.