The U.N. Security Council on May 30, passed a resolution setting Sunday as the date on which a 2006 agreement between the United Nations and the Beirut government to establish the court is to be applied.

Rizk ( pictured right) in a statement said U.N. Security Council Resolution 1757 has a clause which automatically brings the court "into force" on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Rizk asked the Supreme Judicial Council to propose a list of 12 Lebanese judges so that the U.N. can choose three of them to take part in presiding over the tribunal.

The resolution was passed 10-0. Five members of the Security Council, including veto-wielding Russia and China, abstained from the May 30 vote.

The U.N. ruling was denounced by the pro-Syrian Shiite movement Hezbollah as illegal and "an aggressive interference in (Lebanon's) internal affairs."

Syria, Lebanon's former power broker, was widely blamed for the Hariri killing but has denied involvement in the crime.

Hariri, who was a leading opponent of Syrian domination of Lebanon, was killed along with 22 others in a massive bomb blast in Beirut on February 14, 2005.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's majority government accuses the Hezbollah -led opposition of working at the behest of its masters in Damascus to block the court.

Sunday's date for the entry into force of the court was set under a so-called "sunrise clause" to give the rival Lebanese sides a final chance to break their deadlock over the tribunal.

But in the absence of a domestic accord, Belgium's U.N. Ambassador Johan Verbeke, who chairs the Security Council this month, said Friday: "The sunrise clause is being activated."

"This is an automatic clause so it will be entering into force automatically as of June 10," he told reporters.

Verbeke said the council did not plan any formal meeting on the case either Sunday or Monday.

The court will not be up and running for several months, diplomats and U.N .officials say.

UN chief will name the judges

The tribunal is to be held in an as yet undetermined "neutral" location. Cyprus

For reasons of security, administrative efficiency and fairness, the location will be outside Lebanon, with Cyprus , Italy & Holland mentioned as possibilities.

It will include a three-member trial chamber -- two foreigners and one Lebanese -- and a five-judge appeals chamber -- two Lebanese and three foreigners.

All foreign judges are to be named by U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, who will also appoint the prosecutor from nominations made by a panel of two international judges.

Sources: Naharnet, Ya Libnan