BEIRUT: Lebanon has 30 days to pay its $32 million share of the budget for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the court’s registrar has said, according to Thursday’s An-Nahar newspaper.

The newspaper also reported that Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare would release additional indictments in the coming months.

“Lebanon has 30 days to pay its share,” the paper quoted Herman von Hebel as saying Wednesday night during a meeting with reporters in New York, adding that he believes the country will pay its share before the end of the month.

Funding the tribunal has been one of the most contentious issues in Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s Cabinet. Hezbollah and its allies, who hold a majority in the Cabinet, reject the funding outright. Mikati and President Michel Sleiman have vowed to pay Lebanon’s share.

Mikati and Sleiman, along with the March 14 alliance, fear that neglecting to pay Lebanon’s 49 percent share would place the country in confrontation with the international community, something Mikati has said Lebanon cannot afford to do.

Mikati has not yet revealed how he would finance the tribunal. Some politicians suggested that Mikati could pay for the tribunal from his own pocket.

Hezbollah has described the tribunal as a U.S. and Israeli tool to target the party and sow sectarian strife in Lebanon. Hezbollah Chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has repeatedly questioned the credibility of investigators and judges within the U.N.-backed court.

In late June, the court indicted four Hezbollah members of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. The suspects are Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Asad Sabra, and Hasan Ainessi.

Hebel defended the court against Hezbollah’s allegations during the meeting Wednesday, An-Nahar reported.

“If this court is American and Israel, I do not understand why there are more than 25 [countries] from all five continents paying for this tribunal,” he said. “Shouldn't the U.S. and Israel be the only ones who pay?”

Hebel also said that Bellemare would release additional indictments at the end of the year or the beginning of next year in the cases of MP Marwan Hamadeh, former Defense Minister Elias Murr, and slain former Lebanese Communist Party leader George Hawi

Hawi was murdered in a car explosion as he made his way through the Beirut neighborhood of Wata Moseitbeh on June 21, 2005, while Murr was wounded in a bomb attack in Antelias, north of Beirut, on July 15, 2005. Hamade was wounded in a similar attack on Oct. 1. 2004.

Hebel also said that the decision to extend the agreement between the U.N. and Lebanon which established the tribunal, which expires in May 2012, ultimately lies with U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon.

Article 21 of U.N. Security Council 1757 stipulates that the Lebanese government in consultation with the Security Council should extend the three-year-agreement between the two if the work of the tribunal has not been completed. The extension should come after the government and the Security Council review the tribunal’s work after three years of its establishment in March 2009.