The trial chamber of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said Tuesday that it is “our intention to start the trial on” January 13, 2014, despite an outstanding motion to postpone the trial by defense lawyers for the four accused because of an alleged failure of Lebanon to cooperate with defense requests.
Speaking at the court’s first pre-trial conference, Trial Chamber President Judge David Re said the defense motion will be dealt with “in due course.”
Re noted that there are still “12 motions pending” in the case, which was transferred Monday from the pre-trial judge to the trial chamber, beginning a new phase in the STL’s nearly four-year history.
One of the primary purposes of Tuesday’s hearing was for the trial chamber to hear from both the prosecution and defense lawyers concerning whether or not they are ready to begin the trial. The prosecution argued that it is currently reviewing and streamlining its list of exhibits and witnesses, the number of which it said it hopes to “significantly” reduce.
For their part, defense lawyers argued, as they have in the past, that the prosecution has divulged massive amounts of information and had far longer to prepare for a case. The eight lawyers representing the four accused were sworn in before the court in February 2012.
The first United-Nations-backed inquiry into the 2005 car bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 21 others began on 24 February, 2005, just 10 days after the explosion. Following that fact-finding mission, the UN established another committee tasked with continuing the investigation, which handled the file until the STL was formally established in 2009.
Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse, who represents Hassan Oneissi, also lamented the “financial situation of the defense,” arguing that the lawyers for the four accused “can afford one single expert,” as opposed to the numerous experts the prosecution plans to call at trial.
For example, he said the defense lawyers “don’t have an expert in explosives” to counter the prosecution’s narrative of what, exactly, happened near the St. Georges Hotel on February 14, 2005.
The prosecutor’s office announced at the hearing that it plans to present its case in three “chapters.” The first two, which will proceed in tandem, relate to the preparation for the attack, the attack itself, and the false claim of responsibility for the attack. The third “chapter” will focus on tying the accused to the attack.
In both its indictment and pre-trial brief, the prosecutor relies exclusively on telecommunications data to pin responsibility on the four accused – Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Hassan Oneissi, and Assad Sabra, each identified in court documents as a “supporter of Hezbollah.”
Court records suggest the defense plans an attack on the reliability and authenticity of the telecommunications data to beat back the prosecution’s accusations. In early October, defense lawyers for Sabra filed a submission before the pre-trial judge concerning the “authenticity of proposed evidence” presented by the prosecutor.
Sabra’s lawyers were required to file their submission by the STL’s rules and concluded by noting that “nothing in the present filing should be construed as a suggestion that the Sabra Defense agrees to the accuracy, truth, or reliability of the content of any of the documents which the prosecution proposes to offer as evidence at trial. That determination will be made at the time when these are being offered by the Prosecution at trial.”
In the filing, Sabra’s lawyers note that the prosecutor’s telecommunication evidence “might have been subject to interference or falsification” among other potential problems.
In 2010, Lebanese authorities arrested three telecommunications engineers who worked for one the companies that manage the country’s two mobile phone networks on accusations they were Israeli spies. Lebanese daily al-Akhbar, a prominent critic of the STL, in 2011 arguedthat the prosecutor’s case is weak because Lebanon’s telecommunications networks have been penetrated by Israeli spies and can easily be hacked into, rendering data they produce open to easy manipulation.
Sabra’s lawyers did not directly address the notion that Lebanon’s mobile phone networks are compromised, but noted the prosecutor has not provided “a sufficient factual basis for the authenticity of its exhibits, including a full chain of custody of each of them.”
Defense lawyers are not allowed to speak with the press, so their exact strategy will remain unknown until the trial begins.
Also unknown is how a fifth person accused of involvement in the crime, only publicly named earlier this month, will figure in to the trial expected to begin early next year.
In theory, the prosecution could ask for the fifth accused, Hassan Merhi, to be tried along with Badreddine, Ayyash, Oneissi and Sabra – which could further delay the start of the trial – or could try him separately. Asked for comment on how Merhi will be handled, the prosecutor told Judge Re that a decision would be made “in due course.”
Judge Re said the next pre-trial hearing will take place in November.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/reportsfeatures/518054-the-countdown-begins
