On March 14, ...... 1991, 6 men arrested in 1974 following pub bombings that killed 21 persons were freed after 16 years in prison when a British court quashed their convictions based on evidence of misconduct by police and prosecutors. Representing the exonerated men, who'd become known as the Birmingham Six, was Gareth Peirce (above), a British barrister known for her representation of persons accused of terrorist acts. Among the recent clients of Peirce, whom the BBC's described as "an unreconstructed, old-fashioned, radical lawyer": some of the men whom the United States has detained at Guantánamo. (photo credit)
... 2005, political turmoil touched off by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri exactly 1 month earlier -- Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" -- continued. The Associated Press reported that
symbols of Syrian power began coming down ... as Syrian military intelligence agents emptied their offices in Beirut and Tripoli and workers took down an imposing portrait of Syria's president in the capital's seaside boulevard. Lebanese citizens quickly hoisted their national flag -- red and white with a green cedar tree in the middle -- near the sites.
As we've posted, a Special Tribunal for Lebanon, charged with adjudicating crimes related to the Hariri killing, has been authorized but is not yet in operation.
