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The long-awaited findings on the Rafic Hariri assassination by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will be handed down on Tuesday.

Counsel for the victims have called for the full truth of the assassination to be laid bare, stressing this is what the Lebanese people want.

There is likely to be little joy from Tuesday’s decision however. The prosecution team without doubt has put its best face on the assembled evidence, describing it as compelling and overwhelming, but the fact is they have had little to work with.

Despite the initial Lebanese authorities’ investigation, followed by the United Nations Fact-Finding mission and the other investigations since, culminating in the Special Tribunal, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent and no substantive conclusions will be reached.

As all parties agreed at the time of the assassination and since, in all likelihood only a foreign power with strong military and intelligence capabilities would have had the capability of pulling off such a devastating, comprehensive, and stunningly successfully attack on such a scale that it not only killed Harari, but twenty one others 8 travelling in the six-vehicle convoy, and 13 members of the public. Another 226 people were injured, scores with horrific injuries.

In the initial years of the investigation the case was built against Syrian and pro-Syrian Lebanese officials, particularly in the intelligence area, and a number of officers were jailed for up to four years. However the Special Tribunal, on a review of the conclusions following its appointment, concluded there was insufficient evidence against those accused. The officers in jail were released.

Because of the intense political tension at the time Syria was always going to be the biggest loser from the assassination, as it was a certainty it would be blamed – and it was.

Almost on cue, the United States and Israel pointed the finger. The day after the assassination the U.S. ambassador to Syria was recalled from Damascus.

At Hariri’s funeral, the US representative, Assistant Secretary of State, William Burns said: “Mr. Hariri’s death should give, in fact it must give, renewed impetus to achieving a free, independent and sovereign Lebanon. And what that means is the complete and immediate withdrawal by Syria of all of its forces in Lebanon.”

The net result was that Syrian troops and its intelligence infrastructure had evacuated Lebanon within weeks.

So when the evidence against the Syrian regime dissipated, stories then began to appear in the media that Hezbollah was behind the attack, possibly as a proxy for Iran.

In June 2011 four individuals were indicted. Whilst media reports had referred to these as Hezbollah operatives, or invariably as members of the organization, the indictment referred to them as supporters of Hezbollah. The indictment did however go on to say Hezbollah had been implicated in terrorist attacks and people who were trained by their military wing would have the capability of carrying out a terrorist attack. The indictment said two of the men were related by marriage and were brothers-in law of a founding member of Hezbollah who was wanted for terrorist offences.

It was an odd assortment of attempts by association to implicate the militant group in the assassination.

“All four Accused are supporters of Hezbollah, which is a political and military organisation in Lebanon,” the June 2011 indictment said. The document then adds the three points of linkage of the four accused to the organization:

a. In the past, the military wing of Hezbollah has been implicated in terrorist acts. Persons trained by the military wing have the capability to carry out a terrorist attack, whether or not on its behalf.

b. Badreddine and Ayyash are related to each other through marriage and together to a certain Imad Mughniy AH: they are brothers-in-law. Imad

Mugniyah was a founding member of Hezbollah and in charge of its military wing from 1983 until he was killed in Damascus on 12 February 2008. He was wanted internationally for terrorist offences.

c. Based on their experience, training and affiliation with Hezbollah, therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that Badreddine and had the capability to undertake the 14 February 2005 attack.

After a further 20 months of investigation the indictment was amended and at this stage right up until the conclusion of the trial last year the indictment simply read:

“All four Accused are supporters of Hezbollah, which is a political and military organisation in Lebanon.”

At the conclusion of the trial however, in their closing arguments, prosecutors began asserting that a political organization was likely behind the attack.

In a written question the judges asked: “”Paragraph 90 states that the assassination was the’ work of a political organization, which killed for its political beliefs.’ What is the evidence for this and what political organization is implicated?”

In summing up the lead prosecutor attempted to put the case:

“Badreddine and the four accused shared a common bond,” Mr Nigel Povoas said. “That is, in their common support for and links to Hezbollah.”

“Badreddine in particular was a Hezbollah military commander of the first order. Upon his reported death in 2016, he was lauded in Dahyieh, Damascus, and Tehran as an important figure and leader. A hero, even, of the Resistance from its first moments and hours over 30 years ago, whose military experience and track record had propelled and promoted him through the ranks both before and beyond 2005 to head the Hezbollah military command in Syria by 2016.

“It is this extensive experience as a military operative at the highest levels in Hezbollah that is reflected in the sophistication and the subterfuge which characterizes the plot carried out and the advanced organization, the planning, and the access to resource that was necessary to execute such a complex crime. He was a sophisticated military actor,” said the lead prosecutor.

That aside, all the evidence the judges have had to consider, as agreed by the prosecution, the defence and the judges, has been circumstantial. The prosecutors conceded there was no corroborating evidence.

The circumstantial evidence almost entirely consisted of oceans of telecommunications data, mainly cell site data and server coverage maps which show where particular phones and users were at particular times and days. For example prosecutors were able to say one of the accused’s phones (they had several phones) was determined to be in an area in Tripoli where the van used for the bombing was bought by two unidentified men for cash.

Prosecutors concede numerous more people would have been involved in the assassination team, other than the our accused.

Counsel for the accused have argued that the introduction of Hezbollah late in the game was to provide a motive for the accused. It is common ground the assassination was political, but four individuals to have ‘plotted and carried out’ the assassination would plausibly require them to be doing it for others, and not for personal interest.

The judges, to implicate Hezbollah, or accept the prosecution’s claim would require evidence of that but the closing arguments seem more to suggest the involvement of Hezbollah as an explanation for the men’s purported role.

Prosecutors too had difficulty in defining the roles of the accused, what part they played in the assassination. Again the judges are in an awkward position as the four are accused of conspiring with others to plot and carry out the assassination, and not only the intentional homicide of Rafic Hariri, but the intentional homicide of the 21 others killed (not including the suicide bomber). They are also charged with intentional attempted homicide of the 226 people injured.

These are strong charges, the reason for which the prosecutors’ claim, is that knowing the size of the bomb and the damage that it would cause, the perpetrators must have known it would kill a very large number of people.

It cannot be understated the extent of this blast that rocked Beirut on 14 February 2005. At the time when there was general consensus a foreign power was behind it, investigators in a preliminary view stated that the amount of explosive used was equivalent to 300kg of TNT. As the investigation progressed, it was later determined that 2,500kg of TNT equivalent in fact had been used.

In summary, it is difficult to see what the judges will be able to find. It is almost an inevitability there will not be a finding against Hezbollah. The prosecution team, in its summing up, said it was not requesting one, and claimed a finding against the militant group would not be required to find the four accused guilty.

The four accused men have been tried in absentia, so investigators were unable to interview them or establish in fact their whereabouts or movements at the time of the assassination or in the months leading up to it.

Prosecutors say surveillance of Hariri commenced the day after he resigned as prime minister in October 2004. Phone networks claimed to be used by the four however had commenced to be used in September 2004. A Green Network of phones was identified as a Hezbollah security network and prosecutors say one of the accused spoke to the most senior of the others on the day the van used for the bombing was purchased.

The charges also relate to a false claim allegedly made by 2 of the four to Reuters and Al Jazeera on the day of the assassination. They were also accused of recruiting a young Saudi national to make a video saying he was the suicide bomber and asserting that the assassination was being carried out because of Hariri’s support for Saudi Arabia. The young man disappeared in the weeks leading up to the assassination but DNA tests proved he was not the suicide bomber. The prosecution alleged the man was abducted and assumed he was murdered, however no evidence was put forward to support this.

Despite the 415 days of the trial, 297 witnesses, 3,131 documents comprising 145,000 pages, it is unclear what findings the judges will make, but they are unlikely to be substantive. The four remaining accused do not appear to have been key players in what was a very sophisticated operation. There is noone in the dock, only the four in absentia. There are no indictments for those who ordered the attack, whether a state or an organization and no mastermind identified.

Whoever carried out this attack, and it could have been Hezbollah, has left no trace of their involvement. Investigators, prosecutors and the judges have been on a hiding to nothing.