BEIRUT: Syria’s role in destabilizing Lebanon ahead of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will likely be front and center in the next phase of trial at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, new court documents show.
The second phase of the prosecution’s case is expected to begin in the latter half of November, when the first “political witness” is set to testify before the trial chamber.
While the first phase of the trial has focused on the day of the attack, analysis of the crime scene and testimony of Hariri’s bodyguards, the second phase will look at the months leading up to the assassination and the surveillance of Hariri’s movements by the suspects.
The STL’s prosecutor asked the trial chamber in a filing late last week to admit into evidence a tranche of documents detailing the relationship between Lebanon and Syria, including Resolution 1559 that called for the end of Syria’s occupation and the disarmament of all militias, the brotherhood treaty that governed relations between the two countries and media coverage and analysis of political tensions in the run-up to the assassination.
The request was swiftly denounced by defense lawyers, who argued that prosecutors were setting the stage to outline a political motive for Hariri’s assassination, one that they did not allude to in their indictments of five members of Hezbollah accused of complicity in the deadly 2005 bombing.
“As the prosecution has failed to demonstrate any connection between the evidence sought to be tendered and the allegations in the indictment, the evidence sought to be tendered is irrelevant,” lawyers for Hussein Oneissi, one of the suspects in the case, said in their response. “Its only possible contribution would be to color the trial with vague, unverified [and unverifiable] political inferences.”
In addition to Resolution 1559, prosecutors have asked the court to admit nearly 500 documents including the Taif Accord and the Syrian Accountability Act passed by the U.S. Congress in late 2003, arguing that they all provide useful background on Lebanese-Syrian relations, along with press reviews analyzing political events in the run-up to Hariri’s assassination.
They also asked the court to admit into evidence meetings of parliamentary committees, Hariri’s resignation decree, travel records, phone directories, visitor logbooks, U.N. and other documents.
The documents will also help establish Hariri’s movements before his assassination, prosecutors argued.
The STL is tasked with prosecuting those responsible for the attack that killed Hariri and 21 others, heralding an era of turmoil and ending Syria’s tutelage over Lebanon. The court has indicted five members of Hezbollah in connection with the attack, and their trial in absentia is ongoing in The Hague.
No Syrian official has ever been formally charged with involvement in Hariri’s killing, although U.N. investigators blamed Syria for creating an atmosphere of extreme tension and polarization. Investigators also claim the attack was such a complex operation and Syrian intelligence’s infiltration of Lebanese society so thorough that the assassination could not have occurred without the knowledge of senior Lebanese and Syrian officials.
Allegations of Syrian complicity have often focused on Syrian anger over the passage of Security Council resolution 1559 ordering Syrian troops out of Lebanon and Hariri’s possible role in its passage. They also focus on the breakdown of relations between Hariri and Syrian President Bashar Assad over the extension of the mandate of then-Lebanese President Emile Lahoud’s term.
Assad backed the extension, and witness testimony details a stormy meeting in the fall of 2004 between Hariri and Assad in which the Syrian president allegedly declared the extension a fait accompli and threatened Hariri.
But at the heart of this fresh controversy is the fact that the prosecution has never actually outlined a motive for why Hariri was killed.
Prosecutors argue that the surveillance of Hariri and the evidence they gathered about the suspects is sufficient to show criminal intent. Defense lawyers say surveillance and countersurveillance is common in Lebanon and is not enough to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the suspects were involved in a major assassination plot or in pulling the trigger.
But defense lawyers suggested that this request to include new evidence that deals with Lebanese-Syrian relations and internal Lebanese politics is a devious attempt at pinning a motive on the suspects – one that defense lawyers are not prepared to fight.
In a series of objections, the defense said the evidence is irrelevant and should not be accepted because the prosecution has never described a political motive for the attack. They said a discussion of Syrian-Lebanese relations is therefore unnecessary.
“The Prosecution is unable to link these documents to the indictment, as the indictment is characterized by an exclusive focus on the bare facts of the alleged crime,” defense lawyers for Oneissi said in a court filing. “It is silent on the specific issue of Lebanese/Syrian relations and, more broadly, the political background to the explosion.”
“Though allegations involving terrorist acts may appear inherently political, no political motive – or any motive – has been pleaded,” the lawyers said, adding that the only comments of a political nature made by the prosecution are that Hariri was a member of Parliament and that the suspects are supporters of Hezbollah.
The focus on Syria’s relationship with Lebanon is notable because the prosecution has so far avoided wading into the quagmire of Lebanese politics while arguing its case, pointedly avoiding mentioning Hezbollah in open court.
In fact, prosecutors have removed from the latest version of the indictment any allusion to Hezbollah’s alleged involvement in past terrorist attacks and a mention of Imad Mughniyeh, the party’s former military commander who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008 and who is related to a key suspect in the case, Hezbollah operative Mustafa Badreddine.
The amendment was a hint that Hezbollah as an organization would not be accused of complicity in Hariri’s killing.
“It is significant, in particular, that the prosecution withdrew from the initial indictment ... reference to Hezbollah as an organization being implicated in this matter,” defense lawyers for another suspect, Assad Sabra, said in a court filing.
“No mention of that organization was made in the prosecution’s pretrial brief nor in its opening statement,” the lawyers added. “A suggestion that Hezbollah played any part in this assassination therefore does not form a valid part of the prosecution case.”
No comments:
Post a Comment