During investigator Gary Platt’s testimony at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Wednesday, the trial chamber discussed the methodology used to derive conclusions from cellular data records. “For every scenario, there are 1,001 explanations, but when you look at everything in the fullest context [you can draw conclusions],” Platt said in response to questions from Judge Walid Akoum.
Platt, an expert in covert cellular networks, has testified for several weeks on the activities of the five defendants in the months leading up to the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The attack on Feb. 14, 2005, also killed 21 others.
Cell data has been integral to the prosecution’s case. Over the course of the trial, various networks have been color coded according to their function in the alleged conspiracy. Each one was supposedly responsible for a different component of the plot.
In discussing the means by which he came to certain conclusions about the activity of the conspirators, Platt noted that his primary job was to look at the evidence holistically. “In isolation, every bit of this evidence could mean something different, but when you look at the overall picture it makes more sense,” he said.
Platt also made a similar argument when Judge David Re questioned his assertion that one of the accused, the late Mustafa Badreddine, was a “commander, a man of experience with operations like this [covert surveillance and assassinations].”
“Clearly there is some awareness and experience being used in this operation,” Platt said. “Phone behavior and the chain of events demonstrate this.”
Nevertheless, Re was unconvinced that the evidence presented so far constituted grounds for making that assertion, defense counsel Thomas Hannis said, claiming that statements like that were unsubstantiated.
According to Hannis, these issues are at the heart of the defense’s case against the evidence presented so far by the prosecution.
“There have been several times where Mr. Platt has drifted off into the heartland of speculation. We don’t have a single scrap of content for these thousands of phone calls,” Hannis said. “Platt has given possible and sometimes plausible explanations, but we are suspect.”
In addition to Platt’s testimony, prosecutor Allison de Bruir also discussed several witness statements that the prosecution wished to analyze at a later date. They primarily focused on known associates of several of the accused and their business ties.
