Over the past 10 days, lawyer Antoine Korkmaz -- who was appointed by Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Defense Office as lead counsel for Mustafa Badreddine, the prime suspect in ex-PM Rafik Hariri’s murder – could not be reached on the phone.
Naharnet had repeatedly telephoned Korkmaz’s office in Paris over the past week and his secretary would only say that he was unavailable. It later appeared that he had been taking part in the coordination meetings held last week by the defense counsels at the court’s headquarters in Leidschendam.
After the end of the meetings, the release of an official statement on the deliberations and the return of the lawyers to their countries of residence, Korkmaz was still not coming to office – according to the secretary’s answers.
At that point, Naharnet, en route to The Hague, decided to make a stop in the French capital and visit Korkmaz’s office, located in Paris, 8th district, Hoche Avenue, bldg. no. 2, 3rd floor.
However, the secretary would only apologize again for the lawyer’s absence from his office.
When asked by Naharnet to provide us with Korkmaz’s CV and photo to be able to introduce the readers to one of the counsels whose names and pictures will occupy media outlets over the next few years, the secretary asked for some time to seek her boss’s reply … and we are still waiting.
Meanwhile, by checking the STL’s website, the visitor learns that Korkmaz is “a Lebanese and French national admitted to the Paris Bar.”
A statement recently issued by the STL’s Defense Office said “the eight duty counsel have been selected based on their relevant experience, skills and competences, including experience in Lebanon, terrorism cases, or international tribunals as well as their language abilities.”
A quick Google search yields the URL http://www.annuairedesjuristesdaffaires.com/annuaire/510103-robin__korkmaz/membres/510116-antoine-korkmaz.html
According to the aforementioned link, Korkmaz was born on January 17, 1950. He graduated from the University of Paris II and earned a PhD in private law in 1975. He is a founding partner of Robin et Korkmaz, a law firm established in 1975 with activities in the areas of law relating to trade, business, companies, real estate, taxes and international arbitration.
A long list published on the firm’s website contains no mention of any criminal or terror-related cases that lawyer Korkmaz had been previously assigned, which indicates that his firm’s activities are focused on the areas of law relating to trade and finance.
This assumption is backed by the fact that the Lebanese state, under ex-president Emile Lahoud, hired Korkmaz to represent the state and defend its rights against the two mobile phone operators at the time LibanCell and Cellis, which filed arbitration cases in Geneva against the Lebanese state to demand major compensations after the state terminated the contracts signed with the two firms prior to the expiry date.
The two lawsuits ended with a verdict under which the Lebanese state paid tens of millions of dollars in compensations to the two firms.
Korkmaz then remained out of the judicial limelight in Lebanon until the STL ruled to release former General Security chief Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed from prison. After his release, Sayyed hired Korkmaz to represent him in the libel lawsuit he filed in France against Lebanon’s former military intelligence chief Johnny Abdou.
The Defense Office’s assignment of Korkmaz as lead counsel for Hizbullah’s military and security official Mustafa Badreddine comes to put the media spotlight once again on Korkmaz, in a new thorny case that has controversial political aspects in addition to its legal and judicial roots.
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