Members of ISF Present Witness Testimonies at STL

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon continued on Tuesday hearing the testimonies of various witnesses linked to the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005.

It listened to the testimony of Brigadier General Asaad Nohra who is an officer at the Internal Security Forces.

Nohra, who has been working at the ISF since 1984, said that he was responsible during 2005 for forensic testing.

He explained however that the ISF forensic lab was not formed until 2006 and so all DNA testing overseen by the ISF and linked to the Hariri assassination was conducted at the labs of the American University of Science and Technology (AUST) and Universite Saint Joseph.

“The forensic lab was responsible for receiving samples from investigators from the crime scene and the samples were sent to private labs for testing. The findings were then sent back to us,” he told the Prosecution.

The Prosecution asked that if everything goes according to plan, the samples should be directly sent to the forensic lab, to which Nohra answered yes.

The witness added however that at the time of Hariri's murder some samples were not directly sent to them, but instead sent to the private labs without passing through the ISF lab.

A receipt is normally issued when a sample passes through the ISF prior to being sent to university labs, he explained.

No receipt is sent when a sample is directly sent to the university labs without passing through the ISF, he added.

Nohra also said that the member of the ISF lab never head to a crime scene unless they are ordered to do so by their superiors.

On the occasion of Hariri's assassination, Nohra was asked to accompany a scientist from the AUST lab.

Cotton swabs and soil samples were taken from the blast site to identify victims and determine the nature of the explosives used in the bomb, explained the witness.

The Prosecution then presented before the courtroom some pages of the report Nohra filed at the time on his findings at the scene.

His findings included the identification of Ahmed Abu Adas, whom the co-conspirators sought to falsely accuse in the crime.

Nohra did not take part in any further investigations in the Hariri assassination following his report.

A protected witness was then cross-examined by the Prosecution.

He was identified as a member of the ISF who had accompanied a Swiss team in examining the Hariri crime scene in March 2005.

The witness was asked to identify a number of pieces of evidence that were taken at the scene, including the remains of a Mitsubishi truck suspected of transporting the explosives used in Hariri's assassination.

The STL then addressed a number of procedural issues before adjourning the session to 11 am on Wednesday when one witness will present his testimony.

The February 14, 2005 seafront blast killed 22 people including the former prime minister and wounded 226, leading to the establishment by the U.N. Security Council of the STL in 2007.

Although the assassination was initially blamed on four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals, the court in 2011 issued arrest warrants against Mustafa Badreddine, 52, Salim Ayyash, 50, Hussein Oneissi, 39, and Assad Sabra, 37, all members of Hizbullah.

The four suspects were indicted in 2011 with plotting the attack, but have not been arrested. A fifth, Hassan Habib Merhi, was charged late last year in the case and is also still at large.

The STL Trial Chamber later announced that it will hold a joint hearing on February 11 to hear legal submissions from the Prosecution, Defense counsel for Ayyash, Badreddine, Merhi, Oneissi and Sabra, the Legal Representative of Victims and, if necessary, from the Registrar, on the possible joinder of the case against Merhi to the Ayyash et al. proceedings.

This follows a preliminary hearing on January 14 in which the Trial Chamber heard from the Prosecution and counsel for Merhi about the possibility of joining both cases. Counsel for Merhi filed written submissions on this issue on January 30.

The submissions of the Prosecution and Registry are due by February 4.

During the hearing, the Trial Chamber expects pleadings from the parties about the legal impediments of any joinder, and its potential impact upon the progress of the Ayyash et al. trial.

The hearing will be public, but the judges may decide to go into closed session if confidential matters need to be discussed.