U.N. sees boost in funding for Hariri tribunal

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations now has enough money in hand or pledged to cover first-year costs of a special tribunal in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, officials said on Thursday.

The rise in funding brings the start-up of the controversial court, authorized by the Security Council last year, a step closer but officials still could not say when it would begin work.

A U.N. investigation is still under way into the assassination of Hariri and 22 others in a Beirut car-bomb explosion on February 14, 2005.

Although Lebanese authorities have been holding eight people in connection with the blast, the U.N. team has so far named no suspects. Some anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians have blamed Syria. Damascus has denied involvement.

U.N. Legal Counsel Nicolas Michel told a news conference that as of Thursday, the United Nations had received $60.3 million -- $34.4 million cash in hand and $25.9 million in pledges -- from donor countries.

That exceeds the projected $50 million start-up and first-year running costs of the tribunal, which will be based near The Hague in the Netherlands.

Michel, who earlier briefed the Security Council on preparations for the tribunal, said a recent spurt in available funding was due to what he called "very substantial" contributions from Middle Eastern countries.

He declined to detail the contributions of individual countries but said the members of a tribunal management committee -- Lebanon, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and the United States -- had each put in more than $1 million.  Continued...