RIYADH — Saudi Arabia welcomed the verdict passed unanimously by an international tribunal, sentencing two agents of the terrorist Hezbollah militia for plotting to assassinate former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri and 21 others in 2005.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the Netherlands on Thursday sentenced two members of Hezbollah — Hassan Habib Merhi and Hussein Hassan Oneissi — to life imprisonment for their roles in the attack that also wounded 226 others.

Merhi and Oneissi were convicted on appeal in March of five crimes, including being accomplices to the intentional homicide of Hariri and the 21 others. The two men remain at large and were tried in absentia.

The plotters detonated a huge truck bomb outside a hotel on Beirut's seafront as Hariri’s motorcade drove past.

In a statement, Saudi Arabia called on the international community to shoulder its responsibility toward Lebanon and its people who suffer from absurd terrorist acts perpetrated by the Iran-backed militia.

The statement also called for working to implement international resolutions relevant to Lebanon and chase the culprits who deliberately contributed to the assassination, which plunged the sisterly country into unprecedented chaos.

The culprits should be apprehended and sent to justice and the crisis witnessed by Lebanon and its people over the last few decades due to their terrorist acts should be defused, said the Saudi statement. — SPA/Agencies