UN Council gets resolution to create Lebanon court

UNITED NATIONS, May 18 (Reuters) - The United States, France and Britain circulated a UN resolution that would establish a tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 murder of a former Lebanese prime minister and 22 others.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora this week asked the 15-nation UN Security Council to help break an impasse in Beirut over the creation of the court, despite stiff opposition from Emile Lahoud, Lebanon's pro-Syrian president.

Rafik al-Hariri, a former prime minister, and 22 others were assassinated in a bombing in Beirut on February 14, 2005, the first in a series of killings of anti-Syrian figures. Syria has denied involvement and its Lebanese allies oppose the tribunal in its current form.

No vote is scheduled but Western diplomats do not anticipate a veto of the resolution, which invokes Chapter 7 under the UN Charter that would make such a court mandatory.

The draft resolution, distributed to all council members, would approve an earlier agreement establishing the tribunal that Sinoria's government had signed.

But it says that the location of the court would have to be determined at a later date in consultation with Lebanon and subject to another agreement with the United Nations and whichever state hosts the tribunal.

Reuters SM VP0435