# Example — auditing user-supplied documents

Two worked audits illustrating common STL traps.

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## Example A — Trial Chamber vs Appeals Chamber on Merhi and Oneissi

### The document

A draft article asserts:

> "All four defendants in the Hariri assassination case were acquitted, except Salim Ayyash, who was convicted in absentia."

### The audit

The statement reflects only the **Trial Chamber Judgment of 18 August 2020**. It is incomplete and now misleading:

- Trial Chamber, 18 August 2020: Ayyash convicted; **Merhi, Oneissi, and Sabra acquitted**.
- The Prosecutor appealed the Merhi and Oneissi acquittals (not Sabra).
- Appeals Chamber, 10 March 2022: certain Merhi and Oneissi acquittals **reversed** and convictions entered.
- Sentencing Judgment for Merhi and Oneissi, 16 June 2022.

**Suggested redraft:**

> "The Trial Chamber convicted Salim Ayyash in absentia and acquitted Merhi, Oneissi, and Sabra on 18 August 2020 (Case No. STL-11-01/T/TC). On 10 March 2022, the Appeals Chamber reversed certain acquittals of Merhi and Oneissi and entered convictions; they were sentenced in absentia on 16 June 2022 (STL-11-01/S-2/AC). Sabra's acquittal was not appealed."

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## Example B — The 2011 Interlocutory Decision misattributed

### The document

A draft brief reads:

> "Under international law, terrorism in peacetime is a crime against humanity, as the STL Trial Chamber held in Ayyash et al."

### The audit

Three problems:

1. **Trial Chamber vs Appeals Chamber.** The customary-international-law-terrorism finding is in the **Appeals Chamber** Interlocutory Decision of 16 February 2011, not in any Trial Chamber decision. Misattribution.

2. **"Crime against humanity" is incorrect.** The STL Appeals Chamber held that an emerging customary international law definition of **transnational terrorism** had crystallised — as an autonomous crime, not as a crime against humanity. The STL has no jurisdiction over crimes against humanity (Statute Art. 1 limits jurisdiction to the Hariri attack and connected acts under Lebanese law).

3. **Contested character not noted.** If the brief is to be persuasive, it should at least note the contested status of the holding — otherwise opposing counsel will exploit it.

**Suggested redraft:**

> "The STL Appeals Chamber, in its Interlocutory Decision on the Applicable Law of 16 February 2011 (Case No. STL-11-01/I/AC/R176bis), held that an emerging customary international law definition of transnational terrorism had crystallised, comprising three elements: a criminal act, intent to spread fear or coerce authority, and a transnational element. The finding has been contested in subsequent scholarship and has not been adopted by other international tribunals."

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## The common thread

The audit task in each case is to **identify the correct chamber and decision**, and **avoid presenting the STL's contested findings as settled international law**. The STL is a hybrid tribunal applying Lebanese substantive law within an international procedural framework, and its 2011 Interlocutory Decision is a Tribunal-specific holding — accurate when attributed correctly, distortive when overgeneralised.