Michel Massih QC
Here is Michel Massih QC, the barrister who is trying to get a court to issue an arrest warrant for Ehud Barak.
Although he is best known for his high profile defences of terrorists, from Abu Nidal gunmen, through the IRA and right up to Tanvir Hussain – now convicted of conspiracy to murder for his part in the ‘Airlines plot – he has quite an impressive international practice:
He is advising the Syrian government and military officials who are being investigated by the United Nations Security Council over the murder of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon; and he is advising the president of Sudan, Omar al Bashir, who has been accused of presiding over genocide in Darfur by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
As an English barrister, he is bound by the so called cab rank rule: that a barrister must accept any case for which he or she is available, as long as it is within his competence. That most barristers both prosecute and defend is one of the strengths of the English system – it prevents you from becoming too ‘prosecution’ or ‘defence’ minded.
There are, however, a few barristers who – for a variety of reasons – will only defend, and some specialist prosecution sets whose barristers largely only prosecute. For example, Treasury Counsel spend a period of their lives prosecuting serious cases, before moving back to general practice. And there are some sets – such as Massih’s own chambers, Tooks Court – some of whose members, originally at least, subscribed to a revolutionary socialist perspective on their profession, in which the barrister played the role of the insurrectionary. For them, refusing to prosecute as a political act. Once in a while, somebody like Michael Mansfield QC, will dabble in a spot of prosecuting: most unfortunately in the ill fated Stephen Lawrence private prosecution, the failure of which rendered it practically impossible to try in the future those who were suspected of that young man’s racist murder.
Here’s Massih’s perspective:
Over a cup of tea he explained that the relationship between client and barrister is a complex one. “If a lawyer defends an alleged rapist, that does not mean the lawyer identifies with the crime or the alleged criminal.
“The lawyer’s duty is to examine the evidence against the client, and then to confront the client with the evidence and to indicate the strength of the case. If, despite the lawyer’s advice, the defendant still maintains that he is not guilty, it is the lawyer’s duty to represent him or her fearlessly.”
…
Massih’s advocacy of bringing Israel to justice is both professional and personal. While he has been “instructed” as a barrister to pursue various warrants against Israelis over the years, his recent television appearances calling for legal action against Israel have been acts of his own volition. One might ask: If Massih is so outspoken about prosecuting Israel for its alleged war crimes in Gaza, how can he he help defend the president of Sudan, who is accused of war crimes in Darfur?
“There is no double standard in my accepting a brief for Sudan,” he says. “This is not something I sought out. I was instructed by a major international law firm. It is the same principle that applied to my application for arrest warrants against the Israelis; this is an area within my competence.”
Since Massih is, by trade, just a lawyerly cab driver waiting in a queue for clients that match his skills, an intriguing possibility comes to mind. As an expert in war crimes, would Massih be prepared to defend an Israeli general detained in Britain, if the brief landed on his desk?
I rang his mobile to get an answer to this question. Somewhat surprisingly, he was not in Khartoum or Damascus, but buying milk in a London supermarket. “The cab-rank rule is very important at the English bar,” he said. “In this case it’s a theoretical possibility.”
A theoretical possibility? For the Palestinian lad who found his voice haranguing the crowds at Speakers Corner? Surely not. Browsing through the aisles, Massih concluded his thought: “Of course, it’s not going to happen. No one is going to offer me that brief.”
Indeed.
I wonder what it is about Massih that makes him the counsel of choice for terrorists of various stripes, Syrian assassins and Sudanese genocidaires?
My guess is that it is pretty much the same quality which renders him anathema to those who he has made a career out of pursuing through the courts.
UPDATE
Of course, Massih’s scheme has failed.
Comments
| 29 September 2009, 8:15 pm |
I think Barak actually decided to put the UK government in the embarrassing position of having to decide whether they would allow him to face prosecution or not. He could have made their lives easier by agreeing not to travel rather than face the threat of finding himself clapped into handcuffs at Heathrow. Either that or there was a quiet nod and wink from Milliband’s FO before he got on the plane.
Imagine how it would have looked if Gordon Brown’s govt had arrested him while refusing to exercise its right as the national border authority to keep the convicted mass murderer Megrahi under lock and key in favour of sending him home to Libya.
| 29 September 2009, 8:15 pm |
Any chance he’s been touting for fares in the airport arrivals lounge?
| 29 September 2009, 8:49 pm |
One wonders about Milliband’s place in all this.
| 29 September 2009, 9:35 pm |
I’m not exactly convinced by this “taxi rank”. It has the uncommon knack of introducing lost causes to Michael Mansfield QC.
| 29 September 2009, 10:19 pm |
In 1982 I attended a debate at Harvard Law school, (chaired by Alan Dershowitz) on the subject of the cab rank rule. On one side was William Kunstler, defence lawyer for the Black Panthers, Weather Underground, Chicago 7 et al, who repeated in the debate his famous statement, that he refused to defend right-wing groups like the Minutemen, one the grounds that: “I only defend those whose goals I share. I’m not a lawyer for hire. I only defend those I love”. He was nauseating.
On the other side was Roy Cohn of McCarthy notoriety. When he took the stage, he looked as sinister as his reputation: sickly parchment- like skin stretched over his cadaverous skull (he was probably already suffering from the AIDs which he always denied but which killed him 4 years later) the audience hissed vehemently. But he won applause when he defended the cab rank principle very firmly. Of course he was disbarred just before he died for appalling professional misconduct far worse than ignoring the cab rank rule.
| 29 September 2009, 10:30 pm |
Kunstler argument for getting round the cab rank rule was that his antipathy for a client whose views he did not approve of would so cloud his ability to defend him that this meant the case was not within his area of competence.
| 29 September 2009, 10:52 pm |
UPI This is its summary of the Cast Lead Campaign. The Israeli army said 13 Israeli soldiers and civilians were killed in the offensive and 1,166 Palestinians died.
They would have been happier if more Israelis had died, it seems?
| 29 September 2009, 11:03 pm |
Margie, it sure seems that way to me. They always lament the low numbers of Israeli dead.
| 29 September 2009, 11:45 pm |
Glad that Barak was not scared off by this ridiculus threat.
Here in the US, where we do not believe in the hypocracy of so-called gentlemen of the law, this piece of trash would be regarded in the same league as his clients.
| 29 September 2009, 11:52 pm |
I heard Michel Massih speak at an Oxford Union debate a year or so ago alongside Ghada Kharmi. He is after all a Palestinian, I seem to recall also himself a 1948 refugee. He told the story of how he once tried to take his family back for a visit but was turned away at the airport by the Israeli authorities.
So I think it is easy to see his personal interest in prosecuting Israeli war criminals.
| 29 September 2009, 11:55 pm |
How about an arrest warrent for Ahmadenijad and Nazrallah?
| 30 September 2009, 12:18 am |
a 1948 refugee: Not quite, John Edwards. According to the article linked from this post:
“I’m just an orphan and a refugee,” he said in a pathetic whisper, the lion of the courtroom transformed into Oliver Twist.
His lawyer friend would not let this charade pass unchallenged. “At your age, Michel, most people are orphans.”
“Well I am a refugee. I was uprooted from my home and had to come to England.”
“Excuse me,” responded the lawyer. “You were sent to boarding school in England to complete your education.”
Massih had the last word. “Yes but then came 1967 and my home was occupied and I could not return. So I am a refugee. And an orphan.”
| 30 September 2009, 12:45 am |
See at our feet they kneel;
Our hearts we cannot steel
Against the sad, sad tale of the lonely orphan boy!
| 30 September 2009, 2:22 am |
Apropos, isn’t the whole point of having a distinction between a barrister and a solicitor the notion that only minds sharp enough and appreciative enough of the importance of due process to comply with the cab rank principle and give each brief their all?
What quota got this mediocre little shill his title?
| 30 September 2009, 2:39 am |
Margie and Omri re. UPI
I believe that the average exchange rate for prisoners is something in the order of Israeli 1 = palestinians 100. UPI can perhaps draw some comfort from this that the real casualty rate is therefore closer to what they would like it to be.
| 30 September 2009, 5:20 am |
Here in the US, where we do not believe in the hypocracy of so-called gentlemen of the law, this piece of trash would be regarded in the same league as his clients.
Oh really? I was taught in my justice class in high school that our system was built on the principle that one can not expect people to be fair, and thus our system insures a fair trial by giving both sides of a case advocates who do everything legally possible to be unfair in their client’s favor, whether their client is the defendant or the prosecution. The same principle in criminal and civil cases.
I’m sorry to hear that you don’t believe our system of justice.
| 30 September 2009, 5:51 am |
Margie,
They will only be happy when the count goes over 6 million and keeps climbing.
| 30 September 2009, 7:32 am |
They will only be happy when the count goes over 6 million and keeps climbing.
And MPAC UK is doing the cheerleading http://www.mpacuk.org/story/280909/islamophobia-within-jewish-community-questioned-jbod-attacks-mcb.html
| 30 September 2009, 9:04 am |
The height of arrogance indeed (MPAC UK story about JBoD) – pesky Joos just don’t know their place!
| 30 September 2009, 9:58 am |
What a disreputable character.
John Edwards, was he the one tearing-up a banner saying “No to the IDF, no to Hamas”?
| 30 September 2009, 10:51 am |
This morning on the Today programme , we hear Michael Mansfield QC pontificating as to why Roman Polanski should not be prosecuted. His leading argument was that it a question of how best to deploy resources. At the moment,he declared, resources are best devolved in investigating crimes in places like Guinea and Gaza, where the crimes are so horrific they need to be attended to now, rather than old cases like this!
He seems to be prescribing that the domestic criminal law personnel of Switzerland and the USA should abandon the domestic legal system to be conscripted into a sort of Goldstone’s International Police Force.
| 30 September 2009, 11:57 am |
Micky Mansfield, millionaire, taught us that the person who gives a light to the person who lights the fuse is not guily. Likewise if you stake out or watch from a phone booth for the police and warn terorrists of their possible arrival, you are still not guilt but innocent victims of unprovable circumstance.
| 30 September 2009, 12:12 pm |
he’s a pompous windbag
| 30 September 2009, 1:40 pm |
A cognizant human therefore a hypocrite.
Somehow the notion of ‘having to’ is a rather less convincing than ‘need to’.
| 30 September 2009, 3:38 pm |
I think it was simply a publicity stunt for him. Nothing more, nothing less. And not a bad one.
| 30 September 2009, 3:39 pm |
And MPAC UK is doing the cheerleading
Handyman, from your link:-
Muslim hatred among the Jewish Zionist community within Britain is well known to the Muslim community, if only spoken about in hushed tones.
Pro-Israeli Jewish journalists, academics and politicians are at the forefront of vocal opposition to Muslims in Britain, it is widely suspected that Jewish Zionists even attended the fascist marches of the EDL, taunting Muslims with racist abuse.
What crap, within the Jewish community in Manchester I don’t ever recall hearing Islamophobic remarks by anyone. I’d love to know where mpacuk had heard about these “hushed tones” of bigotry. Bukhari seems hell-bent on fostering ill-will between the Muslim and Jewish communities in the UK, which is generally a good relationship.
I’d also like to know where he got the nugget that “Jewish Zionists” are widely suspected of joining the EDL marches.
Bukhari, or whoever penned that steaming heap, is an abject liar.
| 30 September 2009, 4:05 pm |
Perhaps he got it from Nick Griffin
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/09/28/who-was-to-blame-2/
As Bukhari supported Irving and reruns material from neo Nazi sites on MPACuk, I wouldn’t be surprised.
| 30 September 2009, 4:09 pm |
Josh Scholar, I apologize, my comment in my previous post was ill-tempered and off the mark. What I meant to say is that ordinary people usually judge a lawyer by his clients, which in Massih’s case would lead to a poor opinon of him.
| 30 September 2009, 4:16 pm |
How odd, Islamists and fascists singing from the same hymn sheet. Now where have I seen that before?
| 30 September 2009, 4:26 pm |
I missed Mansfield on the Today programme this morning. Presumably he’s anxious to expose Hamas’s subjection of Israeli citizens to years of missiles and to show how its own citizens have been cynically and deliberately put in harms way.
Or did I get that wrong?
| 30 September 2009, 6:36 pm |
cityca: that did cross my mind that is what Mansfield had in mind but sadly, I doubt it.
| 30 September 2009, 11:34 pm |
It seems to me that the western world is beginning to seize up due to lawyers and ‘actions.’ I heard a policemen on the radio yesterday explain how he and his colleagues were unable to intervene between the young thugs that drove that poor woman and her daughter to kill themselves, as they would/could be sued by the kids or their parents.
Now we have the situation of a sovereign country, Israel, defending itself after 8 years of missile attack from Gaza and instead of the instigators of the rocket attacks, Hamas and Iran being ‘brought to book’, it is the victims’ defender, Barak who is threatened with ‘international justice’.
Has the world gone completely mad?
| 1 October 2009, 12:36 am |
Cityca: I am afraid that you are right.
Oh, what a scenario: Ehud Barak in a British court, and the prosecution represented by the defense lawyer of Sudan’s Bashir… Delicious! Who could have thought up such a thing? If I was Barak, I would contemplate volunteering…