Lebanon ramps up security for Hariri tribunal

Three hundred Lebanese police officers have undergone training to protect four judges appointed to a U.N. tribunal to try the accused killers of ex-premier Rafiq al-Hariri, a security official said on Friday.

"We have just completed the training of the officers who will be assigned round-the-clock to protect the four judges, their families and their homes in Lebanon," the official, who requested anonymity, told AFP.

He said the officers would start work once the names of the judges have been made public.

Officials at The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which opened on March 1, have -- out of security concerns -- yet to identity the court's 11 judges, four of them Lebanese, assigned to the court.

Hariri was killed in February 2005 along with 22 other people in a massive bomb blast on the Beirut seafront that some Lebanese politicians, including his son Saad al-Hariri, have blamed on neighboring Syria.

The attack was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since its1975-1990 civil war and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops after a 29-year deployment.

German Detlev Mehlis, who was the previous head of the international investigation, said there was evidence implicating Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services in Hariri's assassination.

Syria denied the allegation but the killing caused a worldwide outcry. Investigators have yet to identify any suspects publicly.

We have just completed the training of the officers who will be assigned round-the-clock to protect the four judges, their families and their homes in Lebanon

Lebanese security official