Beirut - More than four years after the February 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon would begin functioning on March 1, 2009 in The Hague.

Following is a list of political events in Lebanon shortly before Hariri was assassinated and after.

The Hague  - Days before the official opening of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, its main court room still looks the way it did when the UN staff took over the building: A gymnasium.

The green sports floor with typical yellow, white and red lining is still there, as is other standard gym equipment.

Beirut  - Four years after the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri rocked Lebanon, a UN tribunal is finally gearing up to start trying suspects - in a case that may prompt division and instability in the country once again.

On March 1st, the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon - mandated to investigate and prosecute those behind Hariri's murder - will be officially inaugurated in The Hague.

But with Lebanese society still polarized into pro- and anti- Syrian camps, and having just emerged from an 18-month political stalemate, the Hariri tribunal is likely to aggravate wounds that have hardly healed. As a result, political observers fear that the trial will derail upcoming parliamentary elections on June 7.

Beirut  - Both Marawan Hamadeh and May Chidiac are what are now known in Lebanon as "living martyrs" - people who have survived an assassination attempt for their anti-Syrian views.

For Hamadeh, a former government minister, and TV-anchor Chidiac, the launch on March 1st of the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon offers the chance of closure, after years of suffering.

Damascus  - In its own cautious way, the Syrian government in Damascus has, of late, been coming out of its shell.

The country, once an implacable enemy of Israel, occupier of neighbouring Lebanon for three decades, and international pariah, has been the centre of some diplomatic flurry in recent months.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has visited. So has a delegation of European Union officials and foreign ministers. Arab League chief Amr Mussa, from Egypt, a country with often fraught relations with Syria, now seeks Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's counsel.

Beirut - Lebanese judicial authorities on Wednesday released three of the seven people held over the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri, a judicial source said.

The three have been identified as brothers Mahmoud and Ahmed Abdel Aal from Lebanon and Ibrahim Jarjura, a Syrian, the source said.

"The three are out of seven who were held in a Lebanese jail since 2005 on suspicion of withholding information on the Hariri case," the source said without giving further details.