This blog of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) aims at granting the public opinion access to all information related to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon : daily press review in english, french and arabic ; UN documents, etc...

Ce blog du
Centre Libanais des droits humains (CLDH) a pour objectif de rendre accessible à l'opinion publique toute l'information relative au Tribunal Spécial pour le Liban : revue de presse quotidienne en anglais, francais et arabe ; documents onusiens ; rapports, etc...
.

PRESS REVIEW

July 13, 2010 - YaLubnan - STL postpones decision over Sayyed’s request for files

Filed Under Jamil Sayyed, Lebanon, STL, Syria

A public hearing was held today at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon headquarters in The Hague at the request of former General Security chief Maj. General Jamil Sayyed , who is seeking access to certain documents pertaining to his arrest in 2005 as a suspect in the murder of Lebanon’s former PM Rafik Hariri.

On Monday, Sayyed rehearsed the public hearing with his lawyer Akram Azoury for more than three hours at the STL building on Dokter Van der Stamstraat 1 in Leidschendam.”

In his opening statement Azoury told the Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen “Allow me to insist on the right of appeal because it is the most important right as without it, society would not have been established.”

Azoury added : ” We are not asking the court to judge any individual, but we want to determine whether we are able to acquire some information that can be useful elsewhere.”

Azoury continued: No investigations were carried out in Lebanon over false testimonies and all that Sayyed had presented before Lebanese courts was rejected. They were then referred to The Hague where the court announced it would not consider them either.”

Azoury told the court: ” It is necessary to remind everyone that the General was imprisoned and released without knowing the reasons for his detention and without being able to study his investigation file.”

After taking the witness stand Sayyed thanked the court for granting him a public hearing to look into his request.

Sayyed said the court session is not aimed at examining his “wrongful imprisonment” and remind the court that he is in the Hague because of the court’s decision which he called ” a public admission of the existence of false witnesses”.

STL released last year from jail Sayyed along with 3 other generals for lack of sufficient evidence. All 4 officers were arrested in 2005 as suspects in the Hariri murder based on orders from UN Special investigator Detlev Mehlis .

The 4 officers along with the Syrians were in charge of security when Hariri was assassinated in downtown Beirut on Feb. 14, 2005

Sayyed told the court that he was asked to be a false witness, but I refused.

I was told “either you hand over a victim or be the victim ”, he said

He added: “The existence of tens of false witnesses demonstrates that there is a conspiracy surrounding the tribunal.”

He continued: “Syria, like the rest of the world, did not sign any cooperation agreement with the court, so how can we come up with a witness from it?”

The STL Judge asked many questions during the hearing .

Then the judge suspended the public hearing for a half hour to allow Azoury and Sayyed, and representatives of the prosecution to prepare answers to questions he asked them.

After the break Sayyed told the Judge: “I hadn’t been able to access any of the records during the period of my arbitrary and unfair detention, and the tribunal hadn’t taken into account the 110 memos I filed with it during those four years.”

Following the hearing Judge Fransen, postponed to September the final decision on Sayyed’s request for access to certain documents

No comments:

Background - خلفية

On 13 December 2005 the Government of the Lebanese Republic requested the UN to establish a tribunal of an international character to try all those who are alleged responsible for the attack of 14 february 2005 that killed the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others. The United Nations and the Lebanese Republic consequently negotiated an agreement on the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Liens - Links - مواقع ذات صلة

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, David Schenker , March 30, 2010 . Beirut Spring: The Hariri Tribunal Goes Hunting for Hizballah


Frederic Megret, McGill University, 2008. A special tribunal for Lebanon: the UN Security Council and the emancipation of International Criminal Justice


International Center for Transitional Justice Handbook on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, April 10, 2008


United Nations
Conférence de presse de Nicolas Michel, 19 Sept 2007
Conférence de presse de Nicolas Michel, 27 Mars 2008


Département d'Etat américain
* 2009 Human Rights report
* 2008 Human Rights report
* 2007 Human Rights report
* 2006 Human Rights report
* 2005 Human Rights report



ICG - International Crisis Group
The Hariri Tribunal: Separate the Political and the Judicial, 19 July, 2007. [Fr]


HCSS - Hague Centre for strategic studies
Hariri, Homicide and the Hague


Human Rights Watch
* Hariri Tribunal can restore faith in law, 11 may 2006
* Letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, april 27, 2006


Amnesty International
* STL insufficient without wider action to combat impunity
* Liban : le Tribunal de tous les dangers, mai 2007
* Jeu de mecano


Courrier de l'ACAT - Wadih Al Asmar
Le Tribunal spécial pour le Liban : entre espoir et inquiétude


Georges Corm
La justice penale internationale pour le Liban : bienfait ou malediction?


Nadim Shedadi and Elizabeth Wilmshurt, Chatham House
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon : the UN on Trial?, July 2007


Issam Michael Saliba, Law Library of Congress
International Tribunals, National Crimes and the Hariri Assassination : a novel development in International Criminal Law, June 2007


Mona Yacoubian, Council on Foreign Relations
Linkages between Special UN Tribunal, Lebanon, and Syria, June 1, 2007