US embassy cable - 05DAMASCUS5866

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 005866 
 
SIPDIS 
 
PARIS FOR ZEYA, LONDON FOR TSOU, DRL FOR JEANETTE DAVIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/07/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, SY 
SUBJECT: MALEH SLANDER TRIAL DELAYED BY TECHNICALITIES 
 
REF: DAMASCUS 005667 
 
Classified By: CDA Stephen Seche for reasons 1.4(b)/(d) 
 
1.  (C)  Prominent human rights activist and lawyer Haitham 
al-Maleh,s trial continued at the Syrian Military Court on 
November 7.  Maleh told Poloff that the case stems from a 
letter he sent to President Bashar al-Asad in July 2005 in 
reference to a criminal case that was conducted in the Field 
Military Court in 2000.  In his July letter to Bashar, Maleh 
called for the nullification of the Field Military Court Law, 
which was introduced in 1968 &at the beginning of a 
dictatorial regime.8  He also criticized the Field Military 
Court as being an unjust system, under which people had been 
killed.  It is on the basis of this letter that the four 
charges of slander against Maleh were filed: three based on 
criminal law and one based on military law (reftel). 
 
2.  (C)  During the brief hearing, Maleh presented a request 
that the lone military law-based charge be dropped and that 
the other three charges be continued in criminal court. 
Maleh argued to the judge that the Military Court has no 
jurisdiction in his case as he is not a member of the 
military, nor can civilians be court-martialed by the 
military court.  When the judge argued that Syria is still in 
a state of war and therefore military law applies, Maleh 
countered that Syria has not really been in a state of war 
since the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. 
 
3.  (C)  No further action was taken on the case, as no 
representative from the Syrian Bar Association was present to 
represent Maleh.  (Note: According to Maleh,s legal team, 
Syrian legal procedures require that when a Bar Member like 
Maleh appears as a defendant, a representative of the Bar 
Association must be part of the defense team).  Ahmad Fayez 
Fawaz, the current president of Human Rights Association of 
Syria, noted to Poloff that it would be a scandal for the 
Ba,ath Party-affiliated Bar Association to defend such an 
outspoken critic of the regime and he speculated that the Bar 
was trying its best to avoid having to participate. 
 
4.  (C)  Maleh is not being detained by SARG authorities. 
The next hearing date is set for December 1. 
 
 
SECHE