New York - David Tolbert, a lawyer with extensive experience in international criminal law, was Thursday appointed a registrar for the special tribunal prosecuting the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Tolbert will begin work at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon on August 26, the United Nations said in announcing his appointment by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Hariri was killed in a bomb explosion in Beirut in February 2005. He had spoken against Syria's military occupation of Lebanon. Since his death, more than 20 other Lebanese politicians and journalists have been killed and those murders are also being prosecuted by the special tribunal.
Tolbert has worked in the international criminal tribunal for crimes in the ethnic conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina and as an expert in the UN programme to establish the tribunal for the Khmer Rouge's killing fields in Cambodia. He has also written extensively on international criminal law.
