The man found guilty of the assassination of Lebanese former prime minister Rafik Hariri will be sentenced on December 11, the international tribunal in the Netherlands that convicted him said on Tuesday. Prosecutors are asking for a life sentence. The UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted Salim Ayyash, 57, of the 2005 murder but acquitted three others after a trial that ended on August 18. The four were suspected of being members of Hezbollah, a political party and powerful militia organisation that is designated as a terrorist group by countries such as the US, Germany and the UK. None of the men turned up for the trial after the Shiite group's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, refused to hand them over. The court found that Ayyash, who is still on the run, led the team behind the suicide bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others in Beirut. The blast also wounded 226 people. Hariri served as Lebanon's prime minister from 1992 until 1998 and from 2000 until he resigned in October 2004. He was killed in February 2005 when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a van as Hariri's armoured convoy drove past. Prosecutors relied on telecoms data that they argued was able to show how the plot was organised.