For almost five years, UN investigators wanted to find Mustafa Badreddine. And now, at last, they know where he is: buried close to his brother-in-law, Imad Mugnieh, in the Rawdat Shahiyadayn cemetery in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Killed near Damascus airport by a shell fired by Syrian Islamist rebels – according to his Hezbollah comrades – the man accused of planning and organizing the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005 is no longer available for questioning. His commander-in-chief, Hezbollah’s chairman Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, had promised to “cut off the hand” of anyone trying to capture Badreddine or his three accused fellow conspirators – and no-one dared.

While Hezbollah feted his memory last week as a martyr and resistance fighter in both Lebanon and Syria – and others gloated at his death, claiming that Israel must surely have been responsible – Badreddine’s historical importance surely lies not in his presence in Syria, but in Beirut on 14 February 2005, when a massive car bomb exploded beside Hariri’s motorcade.

Hariri was Saudi Arabia’s man in the Levant, not only Lebanese but a Saudi citizen, a close friend of the royal family ever since his construction company excelled all others in the kingdom, the rebuilder of post-war Beirut or, as the Western press (though not the Lebanese) would inevitably dub him, “Mr Lebanon”.

For on that fatal Saint Valentine Day’s massacre in Beirut, Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia’s war against Alawite (Shia) Syrian president Bashar al-Assad almost certainly began. The Saudis believed that Bashar authorized Hariri’s killing because the Lebanese ex-premier opposed Syria’s continued political and military control of Lebanon.

Top Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine killed in Syria – group confirms

It’s true that Bashar deeply distrusted the man who was widely believed to have urged Western leaders to force Syrian troops from Lebanon (others contend this was never the case). But would Syria’s Hezbollah allies, a legal political party in Lebanon with seats in parliament and ministers in the present Lebanese cabinet, have risked their prestige and standing in such a mass murder? Why would Assad want to kill Hariri if the inevitable result was the departure of his army from Lebanon?

Iranian agents in Beirut immediately put it about that the Saudis had arranged for Hariri’s killing, claiming that he had that very morning met a senior member of the Iraqi government to discuss arms deals, and that Hariri had cheated the Saudis out of money sent to purchase weapons for Baghdad, which prompted the Saudis to kill him. The story was as convoluted as it was desperate, and it did nothing to dispel the suspicion that Syrian Baath party security had arranged Hariri’s murder. But the Hezbollah?

Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Show all 10 1 /10 Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Graffiti on the ancient stones reads in Arabic ‘Shooting without the permission of the chief is prohibited’ Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Damaged artefacts lay inside the museum of the historic city of Palmyra Reuters Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Syrian pro-government forces rest by Palmyra Citadel as they take control of the city from the hands of Isis Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The UNESCO world heritage site appears surprisingly intact after its recapture from the militant group Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Many had feared the ancient city would be destroyed following its capture by Isis in May Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Smoke billows from the Palmyra Citadel as Assad’s forces drive the Jihadist group from the city Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Palmyra is one of the ‘most important cultural centers of the world’ Unesco says Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Pro-government forces play football in the streets following the recapture of the city Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The extent of the destruction caused by Isis’ 10 month occupation of the city has yet to be fully realised Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The City Council of Palmyra building in ruins Reuters

One of Nasrallah’s most trusted officers – Iran’s too, since he organized the kidnapping of western captives in Lebanon in the late 1980s – was Imad Mougnieh, blown to pieces by a car bomb outside a shopping mall in Damascus in 2008 (almost certainly, this time, an Israeli assassination) and buried in the same cemetery in which Mustafa Badreddine, his brother-in-law, was interred last week.

Mougnieh’s own son was killed in an Israeli air attack near the Golan Heights in Syria in 2015, along with an Iranian officer and other Hezbollah fighters. Badreddine is said to have also been an intended target – but was not present at the time of the air strike.

But back to 2005. Within days, Lebanese and UN investigators began to concentrate their enquiries on a mass of mobile phone calls made across Beirut in the months before Hariri’s killing and in the days that followed. Some of the material for this research was provided by British intelligence, which monitored Lebanese communications from Mount Troodos in Cyprus.

There were clumsy efforts to obtain mobile call traces in Beirut itself; on one farcical occasion, UN investigators plodded into the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs to check the phone records of a local hospital – carrying with them secret documents belonging to the UN team. A crowd of angry Shia Muslim ladies succeeded in relieving the luckless investigators of their briefcase and its secrets.

The UN had asked all neighbouring countries for their help. Israel, it turned out, was none too keen to assist, at least officially. Why not? The Hezbollah, always keen on conspiracies (real or

otherwise), suggested that Israel killed Hariri in order to pin the blame on Syria and force Bashar’s army out of Lebanon: a retreat that duly came to pass.

Threatening the UN investigation itself, Nasrallah and his men suggested that Israel had long been involved in tampering with Lebanese mobile telephones. Israel had certainly hired a series of bungling agents in southern Lebanon, one of them a senior Lebanese army officer – and equipped them with communications to monitor the Hezbollah. So how could anyone trust the phone “traces” which allegedly linked four senior Hezbollah officials – including, of course, Badreddine – with the Hariri murder?

The refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 70 1 /70 The refugee crisis - in pictures The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian refugee holding a baby in a lifetube swims towards the shore after their dinghy deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee raises a child into the air as Syrian and Afghan refugees are seen on and around a dinghy that deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrian and Afghan refugees fall into the sea after their dinghy deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee cries as he holds a child on the Serbian side of the border with Hungary in Asotthalom Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees stand in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee from Syria prays after arriving on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos aboard an inflatable dinghy across the Aegean Sea from from Turkey. 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Macedonia has organised trains twice a day to the north border where they cross into Serbia to make their way to Hungary The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees push each other as they try to board a bus following their arrival onboard the Eleftherios Venizelos passenger ship at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Greece The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees are welcomed by locals after their arrival at the main railway station in Frankfurt, Germany. Over 1,000 more refugees arrived in Germany to cheers and "welcome" signs, but calls grew for a European solution to its worst refugee crisis since World War II The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A young Syrian boy arrives on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing in a dinghy with other refugees from Turkey AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees walk on the railway tracks between Bicske and Szar, some 40 kms west of Budapest, trying to reach Germany EPA The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Hungarian policemen stand by the family of refugees as they wanted to run away at the railway station in the town of Bicske, Hungary The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A family is arrested by local police after their local train coming from Budapest and heading to the Austrian border has been stopped in Bicske, west of the Hungarian capital The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man is arrested by local police after his local train coming from Budapest and heading to the Austrian border has been stopped in Bicske, west of the Hungarian capital The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict More than 2,500 refugees have died trying to reach Europe this year and the struggle continues as they travel through the continent Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees protest in front of a train at Bicske railway station. 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The Gevgelija-Presevo journey is just a part of the journey that the refugees, the vast majority of them from Syria, are forced to make along the so-called Balkan corridor, which takes them from Turkey, across Greece, Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary, the gateway to the European Union, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee helps up an exhausted fellow refugee as they cross the border between Macedonia and Greece, near the town of Gevgelija, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People breaking through a police cordon and crossing the border between Macedonia and Greece, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees pass the border between Macedonia and Greece, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Macedonian policeman carries a child across the border between Macedonia and Greece, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrians sleep on railroad tracks waiting to be processed across the Macedonian border in Idomeni, Greece, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Czech police officer marks a refugee with a number after more than than 200 refugees were detained, mostly from Syria, on trains from Hungary and Austria at the railway station in Breclav, Czech Republic, September 2015 AP Photo, CTK/Igor Zehl The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A baby is lifted on to the Norwegian vessel ‘Siem Pilot’ during a search-and-rescue mission off the Libyan coast, September 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Budapest's main international railway station ordered an evacuation as hundreds of people tried to board trains to Austria and Germany, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People wave their train tickets and lift up children outside the main Eastern Railway station in Budapest, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People protest at the Eastern (Keleti) railway station of Budapest, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugee children sleep in the surrounding green area of the Keleti railway station in Budapest, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrians cross under a fence into Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, August 2015 Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees who have just crossed the border from Serbia into Hungary walk along a railway track that joins the two countries, August 2015 Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Police arrest refugees at Cobham Services on the M25 in Surrey, August 2015 Twitter: @bigwheeluk The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Men hold a boy as they are stuck between Macedonian riot police officers and fellow refugees during a clash near the border train station of Idomeni, August 2015 AFP/Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian father holds his children close as his arrives on the Greek Island of Kos, August 2015 Eyevine The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A tourist offers water to Iranian refugees as they arrive by paddling an engineless dinghy from the Turkish coast (seen in the background) at a beach on the Greek island of Kos, August 2015 Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian holds his 30-day-old baby on an overcrowded train as they travel through Macedonia. 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The Phoenix, manned by personnel from international non-governmental organisations Medecins san Frontiere (MSF) and MOAS, is the first privately funded vessel to operate in the Mediterranean, August 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Authorities are being overwhelmed as they try to fight off hundreds of refugees, prompting France to beef up its police presence, July 2015 AFP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People escape from the French Police as they try to catch a train to reach England, July 2015 EPA The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man jumps over a fence as he attempts to access the Channel Tunnel, in Calais, northern France, July 2015 PA/Thibault Camus The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Two men cling to the roof of a freight truck as it leaves the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone, July 2015 Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man climbs a security fence of a Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles near Calais, July 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Men help a man squeeze through a gap in a fence near the Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles in Calais, July 2015 Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Desperate for entry to the EU, the group of people risked being washed away by the sea at Ventimiglia rocks, June 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Stranded refugees spend night on rocks - they were supplied with emergency blankets after a cold night next to the sea, June 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees climb in the back of a lorry on the A16 highway leading to the Eurotunnel in Calais, June 2015 Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A police officer sprays tear gas to men trying to access the Channel Tunnel on the A16 highway in Calais, northern France, June 2015 PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Men jump out of a lorry after being discovered by French gendarmerie officers, June 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man sits under the trailer of a lorry, June 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Belgian navy sailor passes life vests to refugees sitting in a rubber boat as they approach the Belgian Navy Vessel Godetia, June 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People on the Belgian Navy vessel Godetia after they were saved during a search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, June 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Iraqis wait as they are detained by Hungarian police after crossing the Hungarian-Serbian border illegally near the village of Asotthalom, Hungary, June 2015 Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrian refugees walking on train tracks through Macedonia on the Western Balkans migration route, after entering Europe through Greece, June 2015 Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A group of people huddle together during an operation to remove them from the Italian-French border in the Italian city of Ventimiglia. 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Around 250 refugees from Syria arrived at the Sicilian harbour from a Damascus refugee camp, June 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A dinghy overcrowded with Afghan refugees arrived on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict An Afghan child is helped off a rib on the Greek island of Kos, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict An Afghan girl holds the hand of a woman as they arrive on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees crossed part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Afghan refugees arrive on a beach of Kos, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Rescuers help children to disembark in the Sicilian harbor of Pozzallo, Italy in April 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A boat transporting refugees arrives in the port of Messina after a rescue operation at sea, April 2015 Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Armed Forces of Malta personnel in protective clothing carry the body of a dead man off Italian coastguard ship Bruno Gregoretti as surviving refugees watch in Senglea, in Valletta's Grand Harbour, April 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Rescued people talk to a member of the Malta Order after a fishing boat carrying refugees capsized off the Libyan coast, is brought ashore along with 23 others retreived by the Italian Coast Guard vessel Bruno Gregoretti at Boiler Wharf, Senglea in Malta, April 2015

The cell phone narrative is long, complex and very dramatic. One number had belonged to the Lebanese presidency, others to known Hezbollah figures. Clusters of phones hired at a cost of many thousands of dollars appeared to prove that Hezbollah operatives watched Hariri in the months prior to his death.

One of the Lebanese security investigators, Wissam Eid – a brilliant young technician whose work was initially, and typically, ignored by the UN itself – was blown up and killed on his way to work in 2008. When the UN made it clear that they were going to blame Hezbollah for the Hariri assassination, Hezbollah’s supporters immediately accused Israel of planting the incriminating phone evidence.

A long and compelling report, with masses of apparent details of Hezbollah phone logs, appeared in an American magazine last year, written by Ronen Bergman, a “military analyst” for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, which also accused Badreddine of “terrorist acts” against Israel.

Was Badreddine responsible, then, for killing Eid – the one man who, at the time of his death, was closest to fingering the Hezbollah for the Hariri murder?

In the days that followed Badreddine’s own violent demise near Damascus airport – at the hands of ‘Takfiris’, according to the Hezbollah, using their usual description of Saudi-supported anti-Assad fighters in Syria – he was also variously accused of having a leading hand in the bombing of the US and French military bases in Beirut in 1983 (when he was only 22 years old), attacks against US and other Western troops in Iraq after 2003, and operations against Assad’s rebel enemies during the war which began in Syria in 2011.

But he certainly was deeply involved in that struggle, just as he tried to destroy the US embassy in Kuwait in 1983, for which he was imprisoned by the Kuwaitis but escaped when Iraq invaded the emirate in 1990.

Most reporters based in Beirut have spent literally months of their lives reporting the 11 years of investigations, theories, accusations and threats behind Hariri’s murder.

I knew Hariri personally and was only a few hundred metres from the explosion which killed him. I knew Imad Mougnieh in the early 1990s; I met him in Tehran when I was trying to persuade his “Islamic Jihad” satellite to free a friend of mine, the American journalist Terry Anderson. I recall that shaking Mougnieh’s hand before a meal of juice and fruit in north Tehran was like being gripped in an iron vice.

Hezbollah military commander Mustafa Badreddine (AFP/Getty)

I talked to UN investigators for many hours, interviewed the Lebanese journalist whose television station revealed the name of one of the UN’s secret ‘witnesses’, and had many times during the Lebanese civil war talked to Ghazi Kennan, the utterly ruthless Syrian intelligence boss in Lebanon and subsequently Bashar’s minister of interior who shot himself in Damascus in 2005. I even saw poor Wissam Eid’s car still smouldering on the Beirut highway after his assassination.

Unkind hearts said Kenaan had been ordered to “suicide” himself lest he be revealed as the “mastermind” behind Hariri’s killing. This was long before the UN switched the blame to Badreddine and his three other Hezbollah chums.

One of Kenaan’s most senior intelligence officers later swore to me that this was untrue, that Kenaan had gone home from work and written a personal letter to his wife before returning to his Damascus office and shooting himself in the head while his own Alawite (Shia) guards unwittingly remained at his door to protect him.

(Reuters (Reuters)

I briefly met Bashar after his father’s death in 2000. I talked to a journalist who was sitting next to Bashar in 2005 when he received the news of Hariri’s murder; the writer said that Bashar seemed genuinely shocked at the news.

I never met Badreddine – at least, not knowingly, although I would surely have remembered his beard and baseball cap and spectacles – and his death in Damascus means that we shall never hear his own version of Hariri’s death. The UN’s in absentia trial of both Baddredine and his colleagues was always a rather unconvincing affair. They were never going to be “made available” to investigators.

And thus we still do not know the truth about Hariri’s death – a commodity the Lebanese, above all, have anticipated for more than a decade. Nor have we yet discovered if that motorcade explosion in Beirut, now commemorated by a grotesque concrete flame at the spot on the roadway where Hariri died, marked the start of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to destroy Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian regime.