(Recasts with UN starting planning) By Patrick Worsnip UNITED NATIONS, June 11 (Reuters) - The United Nations began work on Monday on a special court to try the suspected killers of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri even though a divided Lebanese parliament failed to back the plan. Hariri and 22 others died in February 2005 in a Beirut car bomb blast that interim U.N. findings have linked to Syrian and Lebanese security officials. Syria has denied involvement but the outcry forced it to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. The U.N. and the Lebanese government agreed last year that a special tribunal based outside Lebanon would hear the case. But parliament has not given its backing because its speaker, a pro-Syrian opposition figure, has refused to convene it. At the request of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, the U.N. Security Council voted to set up the special tribunal on June 10, giving Lebanese politicians a last chance to agree to launch it themselves. As expected, there was no such agreement, against a background of fierce clashes in the north of the country between the Lebanese army and al Qaeda-inspired militants, and the deadline passed on Sunday. A U.N. announcement said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had begun to take steps necessary to establish the tribunal. Five of the 15 Security Council members -- Russia, China, Qatar, Indonesia and South Africa -- abstained in the May 30 vote, arguing that the body should not usurp the Lebanese parliament's role. U.N. officials expect it to take up to a year to get the court functioning. They said among issues Ban and his aides would have to tackle were its location and funding, the appointment of judges and prosecutors, and security. Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, and others have warned of possible violence if the court, with which Syria says it will not cooperate, goes ahead. Investigators have yet to name any formal suspects, although Lebanese authorities are currently holding eight people -- four security chiefs and four members of a pro-Syrian group -- over the assassination. A separate U.N. statement said Ban would extend the term of Belgium's Serge Brammertz as chief U.N. investigator in the case by six months until the end of this year. Brammertz took over the job from German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis in January 2006. A senior U.N. official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said the first year of what is expected to be a three-year legal process was likely to cost around $30 million, depending on the location. Lebanon is to foot 49 percent of the bill, the rest coming from voluntary donors.
