Evidence on the origin of the SIM cards allegedly used by those responsible for the bomb attack

During the beginning of September the Prosecution called various witnesses to present evidence on the origins and nature of the network phones and SIM cards allegedly used by the accused in preparing and organising the bomb attack. The Prosecution intends to show that all SIM cards were purchased anonymously. Further, in relation to the red network phones, it is the Prosecution's case that the SIM cards were sold by a mobile telephone distributor to witness PRH553 on 24 December 2004 and delivered to his shop in Tripoli. At some point between 24 December 2004 and 4 January 2005 witness PRH553 sold the eight red network cards, but the Prosecution cannot establish to whom these were sold. Attached to the forms for these SIM cards were identification documents of customers from the Tripoli area, all of whom had purchased their own SIM cards during the holiday period. On 4 January 2005 the eight red network SIM cards were activated.

Mr El-Ajouz (31 August, 1 and 2 September 2015)

Mr El-Ajouz is the owner of Power Group, a mobile telephone distributor. Power Group distributes pre-paid and post-paid SIM cards, scratch cards (to recharge pre-paid SIM card) and handsets to hundreds of dealers in Lebanon. Power Group is an authorised distributor of Alfa products. One of the businesses to which distribution took place was run by witness PRH553 (see further below).

Mr El-Ajouz testifies about the storage and documentation of the products, which, among others, can be tracked through their serial number or bar codes on a form. The witness is commenting on a number of records (including delivery notes, receipt vouchers, and purchase overviews of a particular point of sale) of pre-paid SIM cards for lines claimed to be part of the networks used by these accused. These lines were coming from Alfa and were on-sold to a distributor in Tripoli.

When Power Group sold a group of pre-paid lines, the dealer could fill out a form including a bar code, the subscriber's name and other personal information, and a copy of the purchaser’s ID; this was sent to Alfa. However, this form was only completed for about 20% of the telephone lines. The IDs were not checked by Power Group. For post-paid SIM cards the completion of a form, including a copy of an ID, is obligatory.

During cross-examination Defence counsel is confronting the witness with reports claiming a link between an organisation he’s involved in, the Islamic Charity Projects Association, and the Syrian intelligence, which link the witness denies. Unfortunately, the transcript of 1 September has not (yet) been published and therefore the remainder of the cross-examination remains unknown or unclear for the moment.

Mr Jihad Hassan Tannir (2 September)

Mr Tannir is the former general manager of a wholesale company called Celltec. This was a similar company to Power Group - about which previous witness Mr El-Ajouz testified - in that they distributed Alfa telecommunications products. Mr Tannir explained that Celltex purchased SIM cards and recharge cards from Alfa and distributed these products to its outlets. The witness explains the procedures in distributing telephone lines, which is again similar to evidence given by Mr El-Ajouz on the practices that existed within Power Group, although Celltext also sold products to end users in its own shop. The witness comments on a number of documents, including application forms and invoices, for SIM cards that went through his firm and are claimed to have been used by the accused. Payment options for post-paid cards included payment by the customer in a branch of a certain bank or directly to Alfa, and thus there was no need to provide banking information on the application forms.

PRH090 (2 September)

Witness PRH090 is listed as the subscriber of a pre-paid mobile phone number which was used from October 2004 until September 2005 as one of the blue network phone numbers and which was particularly important in the weeks preceding the bomb attack on Hariri according to the Prosecution. The witness explained in his statement that the application form for this phone number does not contain his handwriting and that most of the information is incorrect; moreover his signature is not on the form, but it is a copy of his ID that is attached to the application. PRH090 had previously purchased a telephone number and left a copy of his identity card at the shop; he has never lost his identity card.

PRH702 (3 September)

Witness PRH702 is another witness whose name is listed as the subscriber of a mobile telephone which the Prosecution allege was part of the blue network. The witness was shown the application form for this phone number and he does not recognise the telephone number; also some of his personal information, including the spelling of his name and his address, are incorrect. He also does not recognise the handwriting on the form nor the signature. PRH702 had purchased a new SIM card towards the end of 2004 and provided an identity card during the transaction.

PRH553 (8-10 September)

Witness PRH553 owned a small mobile phone shop in Tripoli, and was involved in the wholesale and retail of mobile phone products, including SIM cards, recharge cards, handsets and mobile phone accessories. PRH568, who was very experienced in this business and able to get good prices from the dealers, was the shop manager; he dealt with the suppliers and served the customers. The group of suppliers included Power Group, Alliance, Celltec and Kettaneh. They were re-selling Alfa and MTC products, also to other shops.

The witness did not keep any records of the products sold at this shop. It was up to the other shops to complete the application form for the pre-paid cards, although the shops would receive 3 dollar for each completed form for a line (and the shop owned by PRH553 even charged 5 dollar for not completing a form); this is why forms were completed with incorrect information; any ID they had or was given to them by a shop was attached. They were able to use the same ID for tens of pre-paid phone lines. The shop filled in the forms, and very rarely did the customer himself do this. Whenever a customer did not provide an ID card, the witness would fill in the form and put in an ID card in order to recover the money. Very rarely did the form match the identity of the buyer of the SIM card, and the witness would make up the names, addresses, dates and signatures. According to the witness “[t]here was nobody carrying a line with his own name unless we are talking about the post-paid cards or the fixed lines.” Therefore, the Prosecution's theory that all network telephone lines used by the accused were obtained anonymously, seems to apply to almost all (pre-paid) telephone lines in Lebanon at that time.

In September 2005, the witness was charged with having falsified personal papers, and using these falsified papers in relation to the activation forms for the eight SIM cards of the red network. He has been incarcerated for almost three years by the Lebanese authorities but no trial was ever held. The Defence confronts PRH553 with a number of possible contradictions between his previous statements and his testimony in court. However, some of the interrogation of the witness by the Lebanese authorities took place under very harsh conditions and without access to a lawyer.

Defence Counsel Mr Mettraux is questioning the witness about telephone calls between his shop manager, PRH568 (a dropped Prosecution witness), and the Tripoli sales person from Power Group around the date of purchase of the red network cards in December 2005; the Defence also claims to have evidence that shows contact between PRH568 and the Syrian military intelligence. There is also a small dealer, whose name is kept confidential in court ('number six’), about whom the witness and PRH568 remembered that PRH568 sold him ten lines in early January 2005, but they did not remember the exact date of the sale. Therefore it is unknown whether these were the same ten lines as used by the red network. The witness does not remember to whom he sold the red network lines. Further, the Defence has evidence of a number of phone calls between PRH568 and number six (and the assistant of number six) on 30 December 2004, so possibly the sale of these ten lines could have been on this date. The witness also explains that the dates on the forms are not necessarily accurate, with the date on the forms for the red network lines being 12 January 2005.

For the moment it remains unclear to whom these red network telephone lines were sold and if and how they came into the hands of the accused.

More evidence on telecommunication: Expert John Edward Philips

Prior to the recess the Prosecution already explained that the focus in the next months will be telecommunication. Mr Philips, who gave testimony from 18 until 26 August, is an expert witness in the area of cell site analyses, who will describe the technical working of mobile companies and networks. At the request of the Prosecution he wrote a report called “Cell Site Analyses as Applied to GSM Networks” dated 24 September 2012.

Mr Philips worked for Marconi Communication Systems for 15 years. During this time he was invited to publish numerous technical papers on the topic of mobile radio communications and he was active on a number of industry-wide technical committees in relation to mobile radio technology. Thereafter he became head of design and development at Multitone Electronics and he was the secretary of the European paging association. Subsequently he became an engineer at British Telecoms and worked as a cell site analyst. Because of his work he was invited to sit on the GSM specification committee.

His expertise in cell site analysis involves taking the data that is produced by the system and analysing it. He mainly worked in the UK and is not specifically an expert on Lebanese technology; however, the witness expects that the technology employed in the UK is similar to that employed in Lebanon. Defence Counsel Mr Korkmaz challenged the expertise of the witness in relation to GSM and the Lebanese GSM system, but the Trial Chamber was satisfied that Mr Philips has specialised knowledge, skill, or training that can assist the Chamber to understand or determine an issue in dispute; namely, he has expertise on the workings of GSM generally as applied to cell site analysis.

The Prosecution separated the evidence of the witness in three parts: (i) introduction to cell site analysis; (ii) mission phones; and (iii) single-user analysis of some of the SIM cards of key phones in the case. The Prosecution started with a PowerPoint presentation to explain the telecommunication at stake. The witness first explained some key definitions, including “call data records”, that is the data used for all analyses. This data is provided by mobile phone network providers, in the instant case Alfa and MTC. Mr Philips explains a lot of general technical details in the area of telecommunication, including what best server coverage is (the area over which a cell provides the strongest signal), geographical profiling, frequent number analysis and areas of potential manipulation of call data records.

Despite objections by the Defence, Mr Philips continues his evidence by talking about the situation of the providers MTC and Alfa in Lebanon in 2004-2005. The witness gave a very brief case-specific overview as to the interaction and association between mission phones. The mission phone groups are associated with the mission, and the mission is a crime. The Red phone group, the inner group, would appear to be associated with that particular crime, given their geographical location, timing and build-up in the period before the crime. The Blue group has, from a cell sites analyses perspective, no association with the crime but can be linked to the Red group; the same can be said for the Green group. There appears to be a common element between the Red, Blue and Green phone groups, as there is one single user who has a Blue, a Red and a Green phone. Mr Povas explains that it is the Prosecution’s case that this single user is Salim Ayyash.

Mr Courcelle-Labrousse, Defence Counsel for the accused Oneissi, cross-examined the witness about the lack of relevance of his report for the Lebanese situation, and his lack of specific knowledge about the Lebanese GSM configuration. Mr Philips accepted that when you implement a GSM network, the areas you need to cover may have different topographical specifics depending on the location. Defence Counsel Mr Young, for the accused Sabra, dealt with a very technical matter, namely congestion issues, the so-called "anomalies". Mr Philips has talked about the possibility that sudden heavy usage of cells causes an anomaly. Examples giving by the witness are football matches and sports events. Mr Young introduced the idea that the explosion on the 14 February could have caused such an anomaly, referring to previous witnesses who explained that there were problems using their phones after the explosion. The witness thinks that this is possible but only after the incident occurred and centered around that particular area. Judge Re requested the Prosecution to research the potential damage or destruction of cell sites in the area of the St. Georges Hotel, which could also be of influence on the cell site information.  

Further, Mr Young questioned the witness about the potential for manipulation of call data records. A former employee of the Prosecution told the witness in an earlier stage that some held the view that the phone evidence that was used in this case was false. At that moment the testimony was interrupted over a dispute about the disclosure of documents. A document relating to this conversation between the witness and the former employee of the Prosecution has not been disclosed by the Prosecution to the Defence. The Prosecution immediately disclosed the said document and, having read the document, the Defence made an application to adjourn the cross-examination of Mr Philips on the points covered in this particular document, including whether there have been manipulations of call data records. The Chamber granted the application and therefore the cross-examination was postponed.

The five witnesses responsible for the creation of call sequence tables

On 20-22 July the Prosecution presented the evidence of five members of the Prosecution who were responsible for the creation of call sequence tables (CSTs). The telephone numbers in the CSTs include the numbers of the various networks that, according to the Prosecution, were used by the accused in preparation of the bomb attack. These five witnesses all produced very similar evidence.

The Prosecution explains in court that a CST “presents a chronological and complete sequence of calls relating to a particular phone number referred to as the target number over a specified period of time. The CSTs detail each call including the other telephone number the target number was in contact with; the date and time of the call; the type of call, either voice or short message service, or SMS; its duration; information on the handset used by the target number; and cell information on the cell sector used by the target number at the start of the call. The CST occasionally also may include information on the cell sector used at the end of the call, which is referred to as end cell data.”

There are also CSTs for SMS (text messages), which present the SMS content sent and received by a phone over a relevant data range in a consistent accessible format. The SMS CST provides the data and time of the SMS; the other telephone number involved; the direction of the SMS and its content.

The Chamber, in its decision of 6 May in relation to call sequence tables, witness statements and the legality of the transfer of call data records to UNIIIC and the Prosecution, has deferred its decision on the admissibility of CSTs (and related witness statements) until at least one witness has testified about the provenance of the call data records and the production of the CSTs.

Ms. Kei Kamei

The first witness, Ms. Kei Kamei, has been working as an analyst with the Office of the Prosecutor since 9 November 2009, and previously worked for UNIIIC. She has personally produced numerous (SMS) CSTs and coordinated the standardisation of CSTs within the office. Ms. Kamei gives evidence on the source materials she used to produce the CSTs, which are (i) files for one particular phone number or interest; and (ii) bulk data for multiple numbers on a specific day. Ms. Kamei explains the various component parts of call data records. The Prosecution received this data by making a request for assistance to the Lebanese telecommunications service provider in relation to a specific number of interest. The Prosecution requested the bulk call data records for the period September 2004-December 2005 - which was later even extended - that is all phone calls made in Lebanon between these dates. Ms. Kamei further explains the functioning of the SQL database which was used to analyse the bulk data. Further, for the SMS CSTs only bulk data was used, although not all content of the SMS messages appeared to be available in the call data records. In addition, a list with cell tower names received from the telecommunication companies was used to replace the cell IDs in the CSTs.

Ms. Kamei continues to explain how she created the CSTs out of the available data, which involved quite some manual handling. The Judges express their concern as to the accuracy and reliability of the CSTs produced. Ms. Kamei explains the content of various CSTs shown to her. The amount of errors located and the validation and peer review processes are discussed as well.

During cross-examination Mr. Edwards questions the witness about the creation of her statement, and about spot-checks and quality control of the CSTs. If another analyst checks the CST, usually that person would go to the raw source and extract a few, do spot-checks on certain rows.  There was not a formal protocol. No record was kept of the errors that were found. Ms. Kamei admits that it is possible that some of the CSTs contain mistakes that were not detected.

Mr. Andrew Donaldson

The next witness, Mr. Donaldson has been a Prosecution analyst since March 2009. He produced 45 CSTs, and in his statements he describes the components of the CSTs, as well as the sources, and the creation and double-checking of the CSTs. Mr. Donaldson would give his work a 9.9 on a scale of 10 regarding accuracy. The witness estimates that almost all of the CSTs that the Prosecution intends to rely upon as exhibits have been peer reviewed.

Ms. Helena Habraken

Ms. Habraken is the next analyst of the Office of the Prosecutor giving testimony about the CSTs. In her statement of 18 December 2014 she describes having produced 27 CSTs, and she also describes the work methods and sources of the CSTs. Ms. Habraken states that she thinks that the CSTs she made are highly accurate representations of the call data records. According to her, and generally speaking, most errors in the CSTs are formatting errors, when a number would not be properly displayed or a problem in a date or time format.

Mr. Lachlan Christie

Mr. Christie also is an analyst with the Office of the Prosecutor who produced CSTs. He testifies about the same topics as the previous witnesses. Again his confidence level is high that the CSTs he produced are accurate representations of the call data records.

Mr. Christian Carnus

Another Prosecution analyst who produced SMS CSTs, Mr. Carnus describes the method he used to create the SMS CSTs: the SMS contents records were provided by MTC Touch to the Prosecution in the form of large text files for multiple numbers. Mr. Carnus queried the data through the stored procedures in the SQL database and copied the results into an Excel spreadsheet. Mr. Carnus then formatted the SMS CST. Also Mr. Carnus was asked about his confidence level and he is very confident that the SMS CSTs accurately reflect the SQL database. He confirms that the errors he detected were mainly cosmetic in nature. He also confirms that there was no formal peer review process. There was no cross-examination by the Defence.

Ms. Nadine Stanford

Ms. Stanford is another Prosecution analyst and her statement tendered into evidence contains similar evidence as the previous witnesses.

More evidence about the claim of responsibility for the bomb attack

On 14-16 July another two witnesses testified before the STL about the allegedly false claim of responsibility. The first witness was an employee of Reuters News Agency and received a telephone call claiming responsibility on the day of the attack. The second witness is Matthew Barrington, an analyst working for the STL Prosecution, who reviewed the tape with video footage from Al-Jazeera of 14 February 2005.

Employee of Reuters in Beirut (14 July)

Witness PRH012, testifying with protective measures, worked for Reuters News Agency in Beirut in February 2005. The day of the assassination the witness was working at her office, and after the explosion occurred, she decided to visit the crime scene with a colleague. They hailed a taxi which took them close to the event, as at the scene of explosion cars were still exploding. There were still flames and people were trying to save the injured and victims.

As soon as the witness heard that the target was Hariri’s convoy, the witness went back to the office and watched the details of the event on the news; then the phone rang. The witness picked up and a man told her to keep quiet and write down a statement, which included the words: “We are El-Nusra-wal-Jihad group in Greater Syria. We announce and claim our responsibility for killing this criminal, Rafik Hariri, this infidel.’’ The caller concluded by saying a Quranic verse. He had an authoritative voice, speaking classic Arabic with an unnatural and unusual accent, exaggerating for example the pronunciation of the J. It wasn’t a Lebanese accent. If the accused Sabra and/or Oneissi will ever appear and speak before the Tribunal, it would be very interesting to compare their accents and/or dialects to the evidence given by this and other witnesses. For the moment, the Prosecution’s indictment reveals that both accused are claimed to be Lebanese citizens born in Beirut.

After receiving the call she immediately went to see her supervisor who told her that they should not give such phone calls any importance because they seem to be unreliable. Reuters did not broadcast or report the news based on the phone call they received. However, after they saw the declaration at Al-Jazeera, they reported the news based on what Al-Jazeera had broadcast. The witness explained that the content was similar, even though the wording was different. The Prosecution tendered the call sequence table of the public phone number of Reuters that was used for the claim of responsibility; 110 calls were made to this phone number on 14 February 2005.

Mr Haynes, the legal representative of the victims, questioned the witness about civilians who were trying to reach the centre of the blast in order to rescue the victims. Mr Mettraux, defence counsel appearing on behalf of the accused Sabra, questioned the witness about the fact that, although they had not informed the Lebanese authorities about this call, she was interrogated about this call by the Lebanese security services. She also further clarified that the man who called Reuters might have called the administration and asked to speak to the editorial desk, and the call had then been transferred to them.

OTP analyst Matthew Barrington (15-16 July)

Mr Matthew Barrington is an analyst working for the Office of the Prosecutor. He has analysed the video footage from Al-Jazeera of 14 February 2005. The purpose of this review was to determine, as far as possible, the times when the events on the tape occurred, and thus (or at least so it seems) the timing of the phone calls with the claim of responsibility. The witness prepared a chart of the timing of the events on the tape.

In cross-examination defence counsel Mr Mettraux challenges the witness' findings as to the timing of the events on the tape. The Defence takes the position that in fact Mr Barrington could not in any way verify the times that he asserts from an analytical point of view. The witness explains that this was an ad hoc task that he was approached with and was asked to complete. He did not know the background or the investigative avenues that were being pursued by the investigative team at the time. The witness further states that he was unaware of the fact that the footage received from Al-Jazeera was only four hours instead of the unabridged twelve hours that the Prosecution had asked for. Further, the witness was confronted with the fact that another analyst of the Prosecution had concluded that "The footage examined did not contain any material which could assist in determining the exact broadcast time of either news of the claim of responsibility or the confessional tape." The witness confirmed that whilst this person was unable to put times on these events, he was able to do so. When further asked about the methods he used in establishing the timing of the events on the tape - using a particular video-clip to estimate the timing of both the claim of responsibility and the confirmation of Hariri's death - the witness confirms that his conclusions are based on quite a few uncertain assumptions.

Witness Lorenzo Lanzi on the creation of photo-boards of the accused

Mr Lorenzo Lanzi, who gave evidence in court on 14-15 July, is a Swiss national. He is a criminalist at the Geneva police in Switzerland and a former associate forensic expert with the Office of the Prosecution. Mr Lanzi is specialised in forensic imaging, and was asked to create photo-boards which were to include images of the accused Sabra and Oneissi. An investigator of the Prosecution asked Mr Lanzi to create these photo-boards in order to allocate the use of certain telephones to Mr Sabra and to Mr Oneissi. In order to create these photo-boards, Mr Lanzi performed an assessment of various images contained in Lebanese passport application forms. The aim of the assessment was to retrieve images of  Mr Sabra and Mr Oneissi, and to retrieve images of faces of individuals with similar visual characteristics referred to as 'fillers'.

The statement of the witness is tendered into evidence and the witness is cross-examined by defence counsel Mr Courcelle-Labrousse. Mr Lanzi confirms that he was not trained to create photo-boards. At the time of creation he was not aware of the existence of specific forensic rules (from police practice guides for example) on the creation of photo-boards, including that (i) the investigator who is going to show a photo-board to a witness should act in such a way as not to be aware of who is the suspect on the photo-board; (ii) the investigator who is to show the photo-board should not have been involved directly or indirectly in the preparation of such a photo-board; and (iii) the pictures in a photo-board should be presented to the witness in a sequential fashion, that is, one at a time, rather than simultaneously or not all at the same time. The Prosecution confirms that there existed no formal policies on the compilation of photo-boards within its office.

The witness further explains that he chose those individuals whilst trying to avoid including the brothers and relatives for each one of the photo-boards. The Defence however points the witness to various family members (of co-accused) and accused before the STL included in the photo-boards. The witness does not remember out of how many photos he made the selection for the photo-boards or what criteria he exactly used to select faces similar to the accused, as some of the faces show very little similarity.

Hopefully there will soon be more evidence in court about the use of these photo-boards.

Witness Ben-Jeddo on the 'claim of responsibility' phone calls allegedly coming from the accused

Mr Ghassan Ben-Jeddo (testimony of 8-10 July) was the chief of the Al-Jazeera bureau in Beirut in 2005. The bureau chief was the main liaison point between the headquarters in Doha and the bureau in Beirut. He also was in charge of communicating and liaising with the local authorities and coordinating the work between the correspondents and the employees and staff members in the bureau.

[screenshot of Mr Ben-Jeddo testifying via video-link before the STL]

When the explosion occurred Mr Ben-Jeddo was at the office with the editor and the producer. They heard the explosion very clear. He left the office right away with the film director - because next to the Al-Jazeera office was the residence of deputy Walid Jumblatt - but they saw no trace of the explosion in the vicinity. The smoke was coming from the seaside, so they walked back to the main office in the central part of Beirut. The witness sent the producer and a correspondent to the area and went back to the office. The editor (witness PRH006) answered the first call, with Mr Ben-Jeddo taking over from her. The call came shortly after Al Mustaqbal announced that Hariri had been assassinated. The witness wrote down what the caller was saying, and he thinks this claim of responsibility was very similar to the text that they received on paper later on. An organisation called ''El-Nusra-wal-Jihad in Greater Syria'' claimed responsibility; the witness had never heard of this organisation and has no evidence of its existence.

This first call was not very clear. The classical Arabic of the caller was poor, and the pronunciation revealed that he was not an Arabic speaker. About the accent of the caller the witness further states:

"Either he was really from the area of Afghanistan, Pakistan, or he could have been from a place where his mother tongue was English but he spoke Arabic as well. It could be something like that. And there was a big difference between the first caller and the other callers. And as I said, it was obvious that he was reading a text or at least this was my impression and his language was not really good."

Following that first call the witness went on air on Al-Jazeera and provided information about the claim of responsibility they had received. The witness did not take the claim of responsibility seriously. "[I]n such a major assassination operation against somebody, when somebody gets in touch with you and speaks bad Arabic and tells you that they claim responsibility for Hariri's assassination and they're speaking a rather fundamentalist language, can I, as an experienced, seasoned journalist, can I conclude from that that this is confirmed a hundred per cent and that I announce it immediately in this way? I don't think this is ethical" Mr Ben-Jeddo said. When they received the tape afterwards, they took it seriously.

After the end of the broadcast Al-Jazeera received a second phone call; the caller was asking them to go to the tree next to the pink building close to the ESCWA building, and retrieve the tape within 15 minutes. This second caller was speaking proper Arabic. His voice was sharp; the witness couldn’t detect an accent, the man could have been Lebanese or from the region, he spoke neither colloquial nor classic Arabic but neutral. It was obvious that the caller was in a public area, there was a little bit of background noise. The technician (witness PRH115) brought the tape to the office. The tape was in an envelope and contained a written statement similar to taped statement . The witness thinks that, as a journalist and bureau chief, his role was to check the authenticity of the tape and then to feed the tape to the headquarters to take the relevant decision. That evening General Jamil El-Sayyed called about the tape and the next day the tape was handed over to him

The video tape with the alleged false claim of responsibility is played in court, and the accompanying letter is read out, containing the following words:

"Here is good news for all Muslims (…) Praise be to God, the banner of support and jihad was held aloft in Greater Syria and, praise be to God, due punishment was meted out to the agent of infidelity in the Land of the Two Holy Places, Rafic Hariri, through a suicide operation carried out by the Mujahid, Ahmad Abu-Adass, who raised the banner of support and jihad in Greater Syria on Monday 14 February 2005 AD, 5 Muharram 1426 AH in Beirut."

The letter further states that it attaches a film of the martyr Ahmad Abu Adass who carried out the operation, and is signed by Abou Hafass El-Chami. The letter and envelope were submitted for finger-print analysis to a national security agency; there were some latent finger-print marks but these did not match the finger-prints of the accused Oneissi, Sabra and Ayyash, whose finger-prints were taken from their passport applications.

After a while the witness received a third call from another person, a third person, who was asking  him why they didn't broadcast the tape. The witness told him that this was a decision that would be taken by the headquarters in Doha. The caller then became rather sharp, and he was threatening Mr Ben-Jeddo. The accent of the third caller was similar to that of the second caller, he had a local accent or from the region. The line was good and there was no background noise during this third call. In the end the headquarters decided to broadcast the tape. The witness is questioned about the exact timing of the various phone calls. Subsequently he’s being shown a list with phone calls received by the Al-Jazeera landline that was used to make the claim of responsibility, although the Prosecution is not taking the position that this list is complete. Some of the phone calls are made from public phone boots.

In cross-examination the Defence further questions the witness about the exact timing of the various phone calls, as his testimony deviates from his previous statements as to when the phone calls took place. Obviously this is important for the Defence, with these phone calls being attributed to two of the accused (Mr Oneissi and Mr Sabra). Also, the witness has previously stated that four telephone calls were received in relation to the false claim of responsibility, which seems inconsistent with the Prosecution’s case.

In addition, the Defence questions the witness about a person called Wissam, who worked from December 2004 for a period of three months for Al-Jazeera to assist in setting up the office. Wissam had been recommended by Ibrahim El-Masri from the Islamist movement Jamaa Islamiya. Defence counsel Mr Mettraux shows the witness records of telephone contacts between Wissam and Rustom Ghazaleh, the Syrian official in Lebanon, and between Rustom Ghazaleh and Ibrahim El-Masri. Phone records also show that Wissam had sent Eid greetings to Khodr Nabah, a friend of Abu Adass and one of the people from a Sunni fundamentalist group called Al-Qaeda 13 who was arrested in the aftermath of the Hariri killing. Under pressure, one of the members of the group confessed to being involved with the assassination, but subsequently retracted that confession. Information accusing Al-Qaeda 13 had come from Al-Ahbash, a pro-Syrian organisation. The witness thinks it might be possible that Wissam was at the office at the day of the bombing and assisted with contacting persons for the talk shows, as this would have been normal. 

Further, the Defence asks the witness about his appointment with General Jamil Sayyed the day after the bombing. General Jamil Sayyed told the witness that initial investigations about Ahmad Abu Adass showed that the latter was growing more and more fundamentalist and religious, that he used to live in Tariq-El-Jdideh (where the Islamist movement Jamaa Islamiya was present), and that he was seen in one of the mosques. According to the witness, Jamaa Islamiya is a moderate religious organisation. The witness also explains that there was a great deal of doubt that a religious group had killed Hariri. Mr Ibrahim El-Masri had described Ahmad Abu Adass “as being a very modest, common person, and somehow naive. And he ruled out the fact that Ahmad Abu Adass had all these capacities and skills and resources to be part of such a massive operation. That's why he considered that Ahmad Abu Adass might have been a guinea pig or a scapegoat.”

Al-Jazeera witnesses on the claim of responsibility for the bombing

The Prosecution heard the evidence from a number of persons that worked for Al-Jazeera, the news agency that was contacted - purportedly by the accused - in relation to the claim of responsibility for the attack. The indictment provides a detailed account of this allegedly false claim of responsibility for the attack (para. 44):

“ONEISSI and SABRA [..] acted together in disseminating statements falsely attributing responsibility for the attack, ensuring the delivery of the video and ensuring that the video would be broadcast. Starting about 75 minutes after the attack, ONEISSI or SABRA made a total of four calls to the offices of the Reuters and AI-Jazeera news networks in Beirut. All four phone calls were made using the same prepaid Telecard 6162569 from four different public payphones. The sequence of events was as follows: 

a. At about 14:03, MERHI on Purple 231 called SABRA on Purple 018. At about 14:11, ONEISSI or SABRA claimed to Reuters that a fictional fundamentalist group called 'Victory and Jihad in Greater Sy ria' executed the attack.b. At about 14:19, ONEISSI or SABRA uttered into the phone to AI-Jazeera a claim of responsibility from 'Victory and Jihad in Greater Syria', a report of which was broadcast shortly after.c. At about 14:37, MERHI on Purple 231 called SABRA on Purple 018.d. At about 15:27, SABRA called AI-Jazeera and gave information on where to find a videocassette which had been placed in a tree at the ESCW A Square near the AI-Jazeera offices at Shakir Ouayeh building, Beirut. ONEISSI was watching the location to confirm receipt by AI-Jazeera of the videocassette.e. At about 15:50, the videotape was picked up from the tree by an employee of AI-Jazeera. On the video, ABU ADASS claimed responsibility for the attack, that it was in support of 'Mujahidin' in Saudi Arabia, and that further attacks would follow. Attached to the videocassette was a letter in Arabic which stated inter alia that ABU ADASS was the suicide bomber.f. Between 15:53 and 16:02, MERHI on Purple 231 was in contact three times with SABRA on Purple 018, and SABRA on Purple 018 was in contact five times with ONEISSI on Purple 095.g. At about 17:04, ONEISSI or SABRA demanded with menace that AI-Jazeera broadcast the video, which was done shortly after.”

The Al-Jazeera witnesses are: PRH006 ‘the editor’, PRH007 ‘the film director’, PRH115 ‘the technician’, Ghassan Ben-Jeddo (his testimony will be discussed in a separate blog) and PRH430 ‘the producer’.

Witness PRH006: The editor (23-24 June)

This witness used to work as a footage editor in one of Al Jazeera’s offices in Beirut. She gave evidence about the two phone calls that she received at their office following the 14 February 2005 bombing that killed Hariri. These calls were made to a general publicly known telephone line which the public may use to ring into Al-Jazeera; the witness recalls being the person who first picked up the phone on two of those occasions. During the first call a tense male voice asked her to write down a statement he was dictating quickly, and as she was not able to follow up with what he was saying, he threatened to hang up. She gave the phone to her colleague Ghassan Ben-Jeddo, who also started to take notes. The man spoke Arabic, and was trying to speak with a Lebanese accent, but it was very clear that he was not Lebanese. The message on the phone was the same as the message sent to them in written form. The caller said, among others, that they had killed Hariri.

The same person called again, and the witness answered the phone but he asked her to pass the phone to someone who would understand what he was saying and she gave the phone to Mr Ben-Jeddo. Mr Ben-Jeddo told the witness that there was a tape left for them in a well-known tree in Beirut. The film director went there and came back without finding the tape. Mr Ben-Jeddo subsequently asked the technician to go and bring the tape. He had to climb in the tree in order to get the box. The technician brought the tape with him in an envelope; there was also a statement. As soon as he arrived the witness took the tape and they watched it immediately. They contacted the headquarters for Al-Jazeera in Doha - who would make the decision if something should be broadcasted or not - and the content of the tape was transmitted to them. The witness started working on the footage and images, but she heard from her colleagues that further calls were received concerning the claim of responsibility.

The Prosecution showed the witness a document with text messages sent and received by the witness, and asks her about her phone contacts with various colleagues from Al-Jazeera after the bombing. There is also extensive questioning about the exact timing of the events, about which the witness has provided some contradictory statements, and which is possibly contradicting the evidence to be given by other Prosecution witnesses who will testify about the same events. Obviously this is also relevant evidence in relation to the claims made by the Prosecution in the indictment about the exact timing of hte calls made by the accused (see above).

Witness PRH007: The film director (24 June)

In 2005, the witness, a film director, worked for Al-Jazeera Television in Beirut. The Prosecution provides a summary of the witness’ statement that is tendered into evidence:

“On 14^th of February 2005, when the explosion occurred, witness 7 was at the Al-Jazeera office in Clemenceau with Mr Ben-Jeddo. (...) Witness 7 was not in the office when the first call to Al-Jazeera, claiming responsibility, was received. (…)  Mr. Ben-Jeddo also told Witness 7 that there was a tape to be collected located in a tree in Riad-El-Solh Square next to a pink painted building. He was told that the person who called to claim responsibility was the person who put the tape in the tree, although Mr. Ben-Jeddo did not mention the name of a group or person claiming responsibility. Witness 7 agreed to collect the tape. Witness 7 went to the tree but was a little afraid that someone might shoot at him. (…) Witness 7 discreetly looked up at the tree and saw a white box high up which had three to five small holes. (…) he went back to tell Mr. Ben-Jeddo that he had seen an empty box. Mr. Ben-Jeddo told him that if they did not get the tape, then those claiming responsibility would give it to another station."

Witness PRH115: The technician (7- 8 July)

The Prosecution again provides a summary of the witness’ statements that are tendered into evidence. In February 2005, the witness was working as a technician at Al-Jazeera. When the explosion took place on 14 February 2005, the witness received a text message from the editor which said that there had been a big explosion. He called her on the office land-line and she explained that there had been an explosion near the office. After this, the witness went into his home and watched the TV where he saw Mr Ben-Jeddo say that Hariri was the possible target. The witness went to the office, and was told that they had received a phone call from someone saying that there was a videotape to be collected and that the film director had gone to collect it but he was not able to find it. The witness went to the location at the Riad Al-Solh Square and there was only one noticeable tree next to the building, he walked around the tree two or three times. When the witness noticed a white box, he had started to worry as there were numerous soldiers in the area. He did not dare to bring the whole box with him, so he left it at the bottom of the tree and he took only the envelope with him back to Al-Jazeera. He gave the envelope with the tape to Mr Ben-Jeddo. After viewing the tape, Mr Ben-Jeddo and the editor told the others present in the office of its content. At this point, Al-Jazeera started broadcasting the news of the tape's existence. The witness also learned that there was a letter accompanying the tape which contained the same message as the video.The tape remained at Al-Jazeera for a couple of days before the security services picked it up. To the knowledge of the witness, there were three calls made to Al-Jazeera regarding the video and the claim of responsibility: the first call was to claim responsibility and to name the group, the second call was about the tape and its location, and the third call was to threaten to hand the tape to another network unless it was broadcast.

The witness was also shown a document containing a series of text messages sent and received by his phone on 14 February 2005, including text messages sent and received from the previous witness (the editor).

[Document with sms content used during the testimony of witness PRH115 – screenshot]

The Defence is questioning the witness about a number of phone calls he made in the weeks before and after the bombing that killed Hariri, as they believe some of the individuals he contacted might have been implicated in the operation to kill Hariri or in the operation to hide the responsibility of those who carried out the attack.

This witness doesn't remember much detail of what happened on 14 February 2015 and had to be taken to his previous statements to recollect the events. More than 10 years have passed since the assassination of Hariri, and this witness, like many other witnesses before this court, had memory difficulties. As the witness explained ‘Today I do not remember. Now the statement is in front of me, I've signed this statement, thus what I said at the time was true.’ This is an additional challenge for the Prosecution and especially the Defence in deducing evidence from witnesses and confronting witnesses with inconsistencies in their evidence.

Witness PRH430: The producer (13 July)
In early 2005 the witness worked in television production for Al-Jazeera in Beirut. After the attack, the witness went to the scene of the blast to direct the cameraman (in the absence of the correspondent) and to point him at what he should be filming; he also went to arrange live coverage from the crime scene with the headquarters in Doha. The witness took the footage back, and once the footage had been transmitted to Doha, he returned to the office. At the office the witness answered the landline, with a man speaking Arabic (an Arabic closer to classical Arabic, not spoken by Lebanese) asking to speak to Ghassan Ben-Jeddo, and the witness immediately handed over the phone to Mr Ben-Jeddo. That was the only call that he answered, and as far as he was aware the tape was at the office and the caller was inquiring why it had not yet been broadcasted. The witness further clarified that this was the third call; according to the Prosecution's theory the witness therefore spoke to either the accused Sabra or the accused Oneissi.