Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Mongol Trial Day 8 (1/14/14)

Today, the second part of our trial, was a phenomenal success for the prosecution!  

I am sure we made almost no mistakes in proving that the Mongols were in fact guilty of terrorizing, kidnapping, and genocide.  We started today's trial by finishing questioning the prosecution's witnesses, the Chinese peasant, the European knight, and the Persian peasant.  Our direct examiners and  cross-examiners, Maya and Michelle, did an excellent job of questioning out witnesses.   They, as planned, extorted the information necessary to prove that the Mongols were in fact guilty of the three specified charges.  Maya systematically questioned each of the witnesses and asked them thorough questions, which would incriminate the Mongols and Genghis Khan.  Michelle too asked questions which led the witnesses to claim that the Mongols should be guilty of the three charges.  Soon after, the cross-examinations began.  Our lawyers, Maya and Michelle, interrogated Kublai Khan, Mongeke Khan, Subedei Khan, Ogodie Khan, and Mongke Khan.  I think it is safe to conclude that Michelle and Maya obliterated the defense.  Our lawyers made factual, convincing, and logical arguments to interrogate the defense's witnesses and force them to divulge the truth about the brutality and cruelty of the Mongols.  Whereas Maya took a direct approach and systematically asked the witnesses questions, Michelle approached the situation via an entirely different method.  She asked roundabout questions, eventually circling in on the question at hand.  When the witnesses were expecting it the least, she asked them the question that really mattered and caught them off guard.  This method worked in almost every situation.  It is due to these techniques employed by Maya and Michelle that we are confident in the prosecution's lead over the defense.  

During the interrogations of the witnesses, there were a few problems which arose.  During the trial of the prosecution's witnesses, one particular problem that arose was that the defense asked numerous questions that were irrelevant to the case.  They had no bearing on whether the Mongols were guilty nor whether they actually committed any of the three given crimes.  It is for this reason that we (especially Michelle) objected to many of the defense's statements of irrelevance and the defense was told to get to their point.  During the interrogation of the defense's witnesses, many problems also occurred.  In a few instances when Michelle was interrogating the witnesses, there were several occasions during which the witnesses' stories were changed on the spot to refute our lawyers' claims.  They stated facts that were incorrect and thus seemed as though they were leading the trial.  However, we will address this incongruity in our closing statement tomorrow (which will be made by Ashay).  Another problem that arose during the questioning of the defense's witnesses was that the inferiors to the Great Khan, (Mongeke, Subedei, Ogodie, and Mongke) constantly claimed that they were under the orders of the Great Khan, Kublai.  Given this, it was nearly impossible for our cross-examiners to extract any information from the defense's witnesses when the constantly were saying "I just did what I was told".  The only way for the prosecution to solidly condemn the defense's witnesses would have been to interrogate Kublai Khan himself.  However, when the time came for Kublia to be interrogated, he was not present in the courtroom; thus, it was impossible for us to examine him.  Another hole in the defense's argument was that they still focused their argument on the basis that they allowed religious tolerance.  We don't care about religious tolerance, we are concerned with the three charges: genocide, kidnapping, and terrorism.  We again expressed our discontent in our tweets.  

I can't wait for tomorrow; according to the schedule, we will be starting with the two closing statements of the defense and prosecution.  During our closing statement, we will finally be able to voice our discontent with the defense's argument and emphasize that the Mongols are guilty of crimes against humanity.  The defense's closing statement will be very interesting....

If the prosecution performed as well as we think we did, I think we should easily overcome the defense's argument.  But again, that is just my opinion....  I can't wait to see whether the Mongols are finally put behind bars or are unjustly released into the wild so they can create havoc and destruction once again!

No comments:

Post a Comment