Security Council to vote on Hariri tribunal

The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on establishing an international court in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.The United States and its European allies scheduled the vote Wednesday on a resolution to try suspects in the slaying of Hariri, an anti-Syrian politician who was killed with 22 others when a car bomb exploded near his convoy in Beirut in 2005. Preliminary findings in a U.N. inquiry pointed to the complicity of Syrian security services.Pro-Syrian opposition figures in the Lebanese Parliament have blocked action on the Lebanese prime minister’s request for the creation of the court. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he believed the Western countries had the nine votes necessary on the 15-member council to adopt the measure. The Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, implied that his country would abstain rather than veto the resolution.