Fransen Confirms Prosecutor's Request to Amend Indictment

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen has confirmed a request by STL Prosecutor Norman Farrell to amend the indictment, the tribunal announced in a Twitter message on Monday.

“The Prosecution will now have to update the indictment, which was confirmed in June 2011,” it said.

The STL noted that “the new indictment does not include new names or charges and will not have an impact on the start of trial on 25 March 2013.”

“Changes to indictment include modification of list of victims of 14 Feb attack. It clarifies existing allegations & corrects minor mistakes,” it added.

Separately, Fransen noted that “a well-prepared trial is the key to a trial taking place under good conditions, that does not go on forever or get bogged down.”

“It therefore seems important to me to spend enough time in order that it is properly prepared, even if that means it has to start a little later,” said Fransen in a video released on the tribunal's YouTube channel.

The video “gives an overview of the steps required before the Trial Chamber can be seized of the Ayyash et al. case,” the STL said.

“To start with, the Pre-Trial Judge has to rule on the victims' applications to participate in the proceedings in order to determine those who meet the conditions provided for by the Rules to be authorized to participate in the proceedings.

“Then, we have to make sure that the prosecution has forwarded to the defense and to the victims participating in the proceedings all the documents that it intends to produce at trial before the Trial Chamber, as well as the list of all the witnesses it intends to call to the stand,” Fransen says in the video.

He noted that the Prosecution must also forward to the defense “the exculpatory documents it may have in its possession, in other words those that could be used to demonstrate that the accused are innocent.”