8 Lawyers Assigned by STL Defense Office Sworn In

The eight lawyers assigned by the Defense Office of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to the accused in the Ayyash et al. case have been sworn in, the U.N.-backed court said Wednesday in a statement.

The Defense Office appointed the lawyers on February 2 to represent four Hizbullah members -- Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein Anaissi and Assad Sabra -- due to be tried in absentia for the 2005 murder of ex-premier Rafik Hariri.

Each of the four defendants, who remain at large, will have a counsel and co-counsel who “are fully independent and can choose any strategy they see best fit to defend the rights of the accused,” the court said back then.

“All the defense counsel signed a declaration that they will exercise their duties ‘with integrity and diligence, honorably, freely, expeditiously and conscientiously’,” the STL said in Wednesday’s statement.

The counsel also committed to “scrupulously respect professional confidentiality and the other duties imposed by the Code of Professional Conduct for Counsel Appearing Before the Tribunal.”

“This undertaking is an important step for counsel to accept the responsibilities bestowed upon them", said Francois Roux, the Head of the Defense Office. “It underlines the high ethical standards that counsel need to perform their difficult and challenging tasks,” he added.

The President of the Tribunal, Judge Sir David Baragwanath told the counsel, “I welcome you to the STL and wish you well in exercising the vital role you have accepted, both for the rights of the accused and in the interests of the rule of law in Lebanon and the international community.”

Biographies of the defense counsel will be available on the STL website in due course, the tribunal said.

The STL sent arrest warrants for the four suspects to Lebanese authorities in June last year, and Interpol issued a “red notice” in July.

But the Lebanese authorities have failed to arrest them.

The lawyers “are facing the difficult task of representing the accused without communicating with them,” the court said on February 2.

Ayyash, 48 and Badreddine, 50, face charges of “committing a terrorist act by means of an explosive device” and homicide, while Anaissi, 37, and Sabra, 35, face charges of conspiring to commit the same acts.

Created by a 2007 U.N. Security Council resolution at the request of the Saniora government, the STL opened its doors in 2009 and is tasked with trying those suspected of responsibility for Hariri's assassination.