The Last Judgment (43 page)

The witness fumbled through the multipaged exhibit in his lap.

“Take your time,” Will said.

After several minutes of deafening silence Magnit spoke up.

“I guess I never said anything like that in this statement.”

“So, let's go to the second statement you gave to the Palestinian police,” Will said, his voice rising slightly now. “Day four of being in police custody. Earlier that day you were injured. After you get hurt, suddenly you decide to sign a second confession. Now that injury—it must have happened while the police were right next to you. You said you were going down some stairs, right?”

“Yeah. Down a stairway. Stone stairs.”

“A couple of Palestinian police next to you—obviously—because they would not have allowed you to walk around freely. Correct?”

“I think there were three of the Palestinian cops with me.”

“And—what was it—you tripped on a loose shoelace and tumbled down the stairs?”

“I can't remember all the details. I hit my head. Sort of blacked out.”

“You can't remember whether it was a loose shoelace that you tripped on?”

“I'm a little fuzzy on the whole falling-down deal.”

“I thought a few minutes ago you said you tripped because you were wearing jail slippers. I have it right here in my notes. Didn't you say that in your testimony?”

Samir Zayed rose quickly and objected that Will was “pestering Mr. Magnit. Harassing the prosecution's witness.” The prosecutor had one hand behind his back and was gesturing athletically toward Will Chambers with the other.

Judge Mustafa was nodding in agreement, but Judge Lee was raising his hand discreetly, motioning to be heard. Mustafa nodded in his direction, and the Korean spoke up.

“The purpose of cross-examination is to put the prosecution's case to the test. Challenge the credibility of the witness—test memory. The defense should be given some leeway, I think.”

Mustafa and Lee both looked at Judge Verdexler, who was between them. Verdexler glanced over at Scott Magnit in the booth. And then at Will. Then he gave a kind of reluctant shrug in agreement with Judge Lee's position.

“Mr. Chambers,” Mustafa warned, “be careful not to harass the witness. This tribunal will not tolerate that. But…you may proceed with your question.”

Will asked that the last question be reread to the witness. Behind the one-way wall of dark glass at the back of the courtroom, the English-speaking translator repeated the question. Magnit listened in his earphones and then looked up at Will.

“I'm not sure how it happened.”

“That wasn't my question. I was asking, do you agree that a few minutes ago you said you fell because of the jail slippers you were wearing?”

“Maybe I did.”

“But now you don't know why you fell?”

“Not really. I said I can't really remember.”

“So—you don't recall whether it was a loose shoelace…or the jail slippers…or maybe being pushed by the police officers down the stairs—”

Zayed leaped up and waved his arms frantically.

“This cannot be allowed! The defense attorney is asking illegal and improper questions—attacking the honesty and legality of the Palestinian police. This is nothing but a dirty political trick to slander the Palestinian Authority, and I object!”

Mustafa was not inclined to listen to argument or comments from the other judges.

“I have warned you, Mr. Chambers—and these appear to be nothing but unfounded and wild accusations concealed as cross-examination questions.”

Will waved a photograph in front of him, then motioned for the bailiff to take it to the witness booth.

“Please, Your Honor, before you rule on this,” he countered quickly, “I've handed what has already been marked and stipulated into evidence as a photograph taken by the International Red Cross when they paid an unannounced visit to the jail facility shortly after Mr. Magnit's injury. Let the witness look at it and see if it will refresh his memory.”

Judge Lee was nodding but Mustafa was not convinced.

Judge Verdexler's brow was wrinkled. Then he broke his silence.

“Your Honors, I think refreshing the witness's memory is appropriate—given his own testimony that he can't fully recall the incident.” Mustafa slowly yielded and permitted the witness to view the photo.

“Look at the photo,” Will continued, “blackened eye…what seems to be a broken nose…cut lip…and bruising on—well, the photo seems to show bruising on
both sides
of your face—isn't that correct?”

Magnit was staring at the photo. Now his face had the look of barely camouflaged internal misery.

“How were you able to fall down the stairs and beat up
both sides
of your face?”

Magnit was unresponsive in his quiet torment.

“No answer to that?”

Magnit shook his head.

“Let the record reflect,” Will announced, “that the witness has no answer.”

“And also on this photo,” Will's voice now quickened, driving home the point, “a red streak across your cheek—as if someone had whipped your face with a belt or a rope—you do see that?”

“Yes,” Magnit muttered, barely audible. Now, Lee and Verdexler were leaning forward to get a better look at the witness's demeanor.

“Do you have any explanation for how those marks could have occurred from a fall down some stone steps?”

“Not really.”

“Tell the truth,” Will said in a penetrating voice that made one of the prosecution assistants jump a little. “Did someone cause you to fall that day?”

“I said I can't remember what happened.”

“Push you down the stairs?”

“Can't remember.”

“Strike you in the face?”

Now Magnit was silent, but he was shifting back and forth in his chair.

“Whip your face?”

Magnit was still nonresponsive, and so Will asked the tribunal to order the witness to answer the question. But before Mustafa and the other judges could consider the request, Magnit blurted something out.

“Can't remember. That's my answer. I said I can't remember.”

“But the fact is—that after getting these injuries,” Will continued pressing in, “then, and only then, is when you decide to give a second confession, and at that time you implicate Gilead Amahn in this bombing for the first time—by saying that he had
attended planning sessions with your group before the bombing. Right?”

“You could say that.”

Now Will relaxed a bit, and he moved back to the podium and then picked up another document.

“Look at the
third
confession you gave,” Will said. “This was on day ninety of your imprisonment by the Palestinian police. Now this last confession was given after your meeting with the public prosecutor, Mr. Zayed here
.
Right?”

“After we met, yes.”

“And you gave it after you signed a document called a ‘plea agreement'—a contract with the prosecution where you agreed to say certain things about Gilead Amahn. That he not only attended planning sessions, but that he knew about the plan to blow up the Temple Mount, and that he willingly agreed to give the signal for the detonation of the explosives—is all of that true?”

“Sure.”

“And the public prosecutor also agreed to do something for you in return, according to this agreement. True?”

“Don't know what you're getting at…”

“Well, didn't the public prosecutor agree, in the plea agreement, that in return for your testimony against Gilead Amahn, he would not seek the death penalty against you, but ask only for a life sentence?”

Magnit looked over at Samir Zayed, who was staring back.

“I guess that's what the agreement says…but everything I said against Mr. Amahn was true.”

“All of it—absolutely true?”

“Sure.”

“In that plea agreement did you also agree to confirm in court that your accusations against Gilead Amahn are all true, and agree to the stipulation that, if you admit to lying, then the prosecutor can retract the agreement, and seek the death penalty against you?”

“Something like that.”

“So if you were to say today, ‘I only gave that second statement against Gilead because I was beaten up, and I only gave that third statement to save my life, but those accusations I made against Gilead are actually false'—if you did that, then the public prosecutor would seek to put you to death. That's the real situation—correct?”

Scott Magnit had enough. His eyes were closed. His lips were pursed together and working and his face was tensed, as if he were being forced to chew something indigestible and disgusting.

“Look—all I know is what I put in those confessions.”

“Are you willing to tell this tribunal the truth about Gilead Amahn?”

Magnit's eyes were still closed. But his lips parted.

“All I know is what I put in those statements…”

Will announced the end of his cross-examination. Zayed then scurried to the podium, asking Magnit several times, in several different ways, whether the “third statement was the most complete and accurate of all your statements, because only then did you have the opportunity to think back clearly about the accused, and the bombing, and get in all the facts, and for no other reason.”

Magnit quickly agreed to that, hoping to be relieved from the witness booth.

But Will stepped back up for re-cross.

“One last area,” Will said quietly. “You were very scared when you were told by the public prosecutor that, unless you pointed the finger at Gilead Amahn, you'd get the death penalty, right?”

“I was pretty scared all during the time I was in jail. Not just that time.”

“But you were the most scared on day ninety, when you were told that, unless you gave a third confession and actually accused Gilead of being a co-conspirator, on conviction you'd be put to death?”

“I can't say that. I was nervous all the time,” Magnit answered, trying to muster a last vestige of bravado.

“Oh? Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

Will then placed some transparencies on the scanner for the exhibit viewer, which displayed the images on the screen in the courtroom wall. Two signatures of Scott Magnit were shown.

“Farthest to the left—your normal signature, written on the first confession. Correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Middle signature—that's your signature on the second confession, after your serious injuries—a little unsteady, but pretty normal?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Then Will put the third transparency on the scanner. A third signature appeared on the courtroom viewing screen.

“Third signature…were you on any drugs that day?”

“No.”

“I ask because—well, just look at that signature, Scott. It's very zig-zaggy—looks like it was written when your hand was shaking considerably. Like it was shaking uncontrollably. Was your hand in fact shaking like that when you signed the plea agreement and your third confession statement, wherein you made your most serious accusations against Gilead Amahn?”

Magnit saw no way out. There it was—his signature zoomed up by a power of ten, displayed on the screen for all three judges to see. It was written in a jagged and sharply erratic hand, almost comical in its bizarre appearance…were it not for the tragic import of the document he had been signing. But now, sitting in the glass witness booth, Scott Magnit had little choice.

“Was your hand shaking from fear?” Will asked again, his voice ringing out.

“I guess so,” Magnit replied, and then he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, like a swimmer filling his lungs before plunging into the deep.

61

A
FTER
W
ILL
'
S CROSS-EXAMINATION
of Scott Magnit, the witness was excused. He exited the glass-enclosed site of his inquisition and was escorted out by several Palestinian police. Then Samir Zayed approached the podium. He paused dramatically, then announced that the prosecution was resting its case.

Will immediately moved that the court dismiss the case. He argued that the Palestinian public prosecutor had failed to make out a prima facie case that Gilead had willingly and knowingly participated in the conspiracy of the Knights to carry out the bombing attack on the Mount. He pointed out, further, that the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals had struck down portions of America's antiterrorism law that had outlawed “the providing of material support” for terrorism—on the grounds that the law didn't sufficiently require that the accused
actually know
he was assisting a terrorist conspiracy. And because the Palestinian International Tribunal had based its criminal law for Gilead's case on the American model, “we should be very diligent,” Will submitted, “to require the prosecution to prove that Gilead actually knew he was aiding the murder and mayhem of the Knights.”