The Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Trial Chamber held a hearing on
Wednesday on defense motions challenging the jurisdiction of the court.
The defense teams for the four Hizbullah members indicted in the
2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri filed the separate motions last
month although their arguments overlap.
The Hizbullah members Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein
Oneissi and Assad Sabra remain at large.
Among the challenges, the U.N. Security Council abused its powers
when it adopted resolution 1757 in 2007 because Hariri’s assassination could
not in any sense be considered to pose a threat to international peace and
security.
During the debate on the adoption of resolution 1757 no one
referred to or used the term threat to international peace and security, said
Badreddine’s lead counsel Antoine Korkmaz during the hearing.
The Security Council never used Chapter 7 in any of its
resolutions on Lebanon, particularly in the 2006 war between Israel and
Hizbullah which left thousands of people dead, said Emile Aoun, Ayyash’s
co-counsel.
STL has been considered a tool to defeat a certain political
party, he said.
“The super powers that control the Security Council have let it
interfere in the internal affairs of certain countries.”
“This will destabilize international peace,” he added.
The defense teams also argue that the STL was established in
flagrant violation of Lebanon’s constitution and its sovereign equality under
international law.
The STL’s establishment “was not ratified by the parliament, and
the president did not negotiate the agreement,” Korkmaz said.
The president was comprehensively sidelined in breach of article
52 of the constitution, which says the head of state negotiates and ratifies
treaties, said Sabra’s lead counsel David Young.
Furthermore the defense teams argue that the Security Council
coercively brought into force an agreement between Lebanon and the United
Nations to set up the STL.
According to them, under international law, in particular the
Vienna Convention, a treaty cannot be brought into force coercively, against
the will of one of the state parties.
STL Chief of Prosecutions Daryl Mundis responded to defense claims
that the tribunal has violated Lebanon’s sovereignty by saying that the state
had never officially challenged the creation of the tribunal.
He added: “Under the circumstances at present, when we have a
state that can bring up sovereignty issues and yet it hasn’t, we shouldn’t
allow individuals to take that role and raise these issues.”
“The conduct of Lebanon showed that it accepted in principle the
establishment of the STL,” he stated.
“We don’t have a situation where they (Lebanon) haven’t chosen to
raise issues of sovereignty, but they have performed everything they have been
required to do,” he explained.
The individual accused therefore "should not step in the
shoes of the Republic of Lebanon", he said.
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