The Daily Star - STL defense arrangements start to take shape - September 08, 2011

BEIRUT: Prime Minister Najib Mikati held private talks Wednesday with the head of defense at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, as the tribunal’s Defense Office released a list of defense lawyers the accused will have access to if they request legal help.
Mikati met head of the STL Defense Office François Roux at the Grand Serail in Downtown Beirut, but no facts about the meeting were revealed to the media.
This was the second behind-the-scenes meeting since Tuesday, when Mikati held hush-hush talks with STL Registrar Herman von Hebel.
Von Hebel left Beirut Wednesday evening following his three-day visit.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first between Mikati and an STL official since the release of indictments in June against four members of Hezbollah suspected of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
The accused will be able to choose freely from the list, and in the case of a trial in absentia, the head of the Defense Office will also be able to use the list for proceedings.
The Defense Office has approved 120 names out of 145 applicants, but only 118 names have been made public and published on the STL’s website, along with the primary jurisdiction in which they were admitted, a press release from the STL said Wednesday.
Out of the 118 lawyers on the Defense Counsel list, 33 are British nationals, 23 U.S. nationals, 13 French nationals and six are Lebanese. In total, 60 are from the European Union.
“The list contains a wide variety of very competent criminal defense lawyers who have experience in the defense of the most serious crimes at the national and international level,” the release said, adding the head of Defense Office was proud to present the list.
The release also said that for the first time with the STL, the Defense Office is an independent body of the court.
Candidates were interviewed by an admission panel composed of the head of the Defense Office and two external counselors, and have to follow a mandatory training course for counsel. The Defense Council, for its part, is in charge of overseeing their effectiveness.
The Defense Office had qualified these requirements as “improvements” for the protection of the rights of the accused.
Finally, the release said the Defense Office “is still accepting more applications to the List of Counsel.”