Former Trustee Hariri killed in Beirut bombing

Former Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafik Hariri, a past Boston University trustee with a long-standing affiliation with the school, was assassinated Monday when a bomb went off near his motorcade in Beirut, Lebanon.

School of Management Dean Louis Lataif said Hariri's involvement at the university, including the $10 million naming gift to the SMG building, began as a result of the Hariri Foundation, a program that funded Middle Eastern student's western educations.

"In the early '80s, [Hariri] founded the Hariri Foundation, which sought to educate students who otherwise couldn't afford an education," Lataif said. "It turns out that the largest number of Hariri scholars came to BU, so he came to the university's attention as a fellow who was paying tuition for several of our students."

In 1985, the Hariri Foundation sent 285 scholars to BU and Hariri was presented with an honorary doctor of laws degree the following year, according to a Feb. 14 university press release.

According to Lataif, Hariri was named a trustee in 1990 and served until 2003, at which point his son Baha'a was invited to serve on the Board of Trustees.

"As prime minister, he wasn't able to attend trustee meetings," Lataif said. "At some point he stepped down and his son Baha'a was invited, and he accepted."

Lataif said Hariri was trained as a schoolteacher and accountant in Lebanon before starting his business in other parts of the world.

"He went to Saudi Arabia to seek his fortune and built the largest privately owned construction company there," he said. "He became a billionaire."

Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, served five different terms as Prime Minister of Lebanon, including the most recent term from 2000-03. According to Lataif, Hariri stepped down in October 2003 "because of a disagreement he had with the president of Lebanon over the role of Syria in Lebanese politics and government."

"This was just a huge surprise that a non-sitting prime minister would have been assassinated," he said. "You would think terrorists would have gone after someone on the job."

Lataif said accusations that the assassination resulted from Hariri's close ties to the Saudi Arabian government made Hariri's death more mysterious. The fundamentalist group Victory and Jihad has claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to news reports.

"His support is for the Saudi regime, so this is almost independent of Lebanon's own politics or even the issues with Palestine, Israel or Syria," he said.

In a statement released by the university, President ad interim Aram Chobanian praised Hariri as "an exceptionally generous person who gave his time in the effort to rebuild his native country of Lebanon, and of his fortune in philanthropic efforts around the world."

"We are deeply saddened by his death, and horrified at the manner in which he died," he said. "His courage in assuming a leadership role in Lebanon following that country's civil war stands in opposition to the cowardice of those who commit murder by car bomb."

Since Hariri's involvement with the Lebanese government, the Hariri Foundation has sent less students to universities in Europe and the United States and allotted more resources to opening schools in the Middle East, Lataif said.

"What the Foundation will do following his passing, I don't know," he said. "It will be months and months, if not years, before they will fully recover from his death."

Lataif called Monday "a sad day for the Middle East and for the world."

"Here at SMG we're talking about a memorial," he said. "We will hear from the Hariri Foundation about what they learn when they travel to Lebanon today about funeral arrangements."