welcome to al jazeera. here are tonight's top stories. the u.n. say there is is an agreement with syria to let inspectors visit the site of last week's alleged chemical weapons attack on the out skirts of damascus. the inspections could get under way as soon as monday. a senior obama official says there is little doubt chemical weapons were used. the fires west ofi of yosemite park are contained. the windy, dry conditions mean it is likely to superdome more.

the u.s. army psychiatrist convicted of murder will be back in front of a jury on monday. he is entering the penalty phase of his trial. a military jury convicted him of 35 charges including premeditated murder. one of the penalties the jury could recommend is death. those are your headlines.

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while the death toll from cholera continues to rise, a new fight for justice has begun. mario joseph is the most famous lawyer in haiti. he's won landmark victories for victims of political persecution. today, he's collecting medical records. with very limited resources mario is representing thousands of haitians who've been affected by cholera. it's the case of his life - they're trying to sue the united nations. >> the united nations have a lot of money, we don't have. and they have a lot of -- a hundred thousand lawyers. we have only 12! the balance is for them. if they need to comply with the law, the balance is for us! >> the lawsuit - filed in november 2011 - claims that un failures to screen its soldiers for cholera and follow international rules on waste disposal constitute gross

negligence. it's based on the un's own investigation which concluded that the nepalese base leaking sewage into the river was a likely source of the outbreak. and it's composed of thousands of stories of personal loss, each one documented by mario and his team. the next meeting is in mirebalais... the town that's home to the un base where the disease is known to have started. henrietta paul's husband was one of the very first to die. she doesn't know exactly where he's buried - back then the death toll was so high that bodies were being dumped in mass graves. today, she and her daughter

lisette are filing a new claim. henrietta's only son, died three weeks ago from cholera. he was 34. back at their headquarters in downtown port-au-prince the fruits of the lawyers' painstaking labor is kept in a dusty store-room, still waiting for the day it will be used in court. >> these are all the case files in here? >> yes, this is the first five thousand filed. not only have we filled the form, they're notarized. they said "we received the complaints, we will give you an answer and respond in due

time" - i don't know when the reasonable time will be. >> but it's been more than a year? >> more than a year, yes. >> and you've heard nothing? >> nothing, nothing. >> faced with the un's silence, the lawyers decided to expand the lawsuit, adding more names to the thousands who'd already filed a complaint. >> un have to respond. >> un must respond. they promote human rights. we will continue to fight. until they respond, we will file complaints. for all the people! the 2010 earthquake killed more than 220,000 people - those who lost their lives are remembered each year with dignitaries from

around the world coming to pay their respects. but for those who've died - and continue to die - from the cholera epidemic there is no day of mourning. and even senior un representatives are staying silent on whether the victims' families deserve any compensation for their loss. >> you've said the un introduced cholera to haiti. do you think they should be liable for all those deaths? there's nearly 8,000 people who've been killed... >> that's a decision someone else has to make now. i think the most important thing is that the un asked paul farmer to oversee the response. we've got the infection and mortality rate cut in half and i think it can be contained. so i'm encouraged by that. >> but there's 8,000 people already dead, mr. president. who should answer for those people that are already dead? mr president? >> thank you, thank you, thank you. >> well the ceremony's over and the cavalcade's now leaving and we still haven't got any

answers. bill clinton there saying it's not for him to decide whether or not the un is liable. but he's actually said that the un brought the disease to this island, so if he can't answer the question about accountability, it's not really clear who can. our next stop: un headquarters in haiti. here, at least we'd be able to find out why mario's clients had been waiting over a year for a response to their lawsuit. we'd been promised an interview with nigel fisher, the head of the un mission in haiti that's known by its acronym "minustah". >> well hi, is that nigel fisher's office? hi is that nigel fishers office? hi there, i'm trying to get through to nigel fisher's office, there doesn't seem to be anybody answering the phone now. >> but it was proving difficult to get hold of him. >> hello, there's still no answer from nigel fisher's office. it doesn't look like it's going to happen. ok well, i guess we'll just do what we can to try and catch up with him. but just as we were about to give up... >> this is nigel fisher, this is the man we've been trying to find all afternoon. it seems he's finally turned up,

so we'll see if he's actually going to answer our questions. >> you remember me? sebastian from al jazeera? >> yes, of course, you're very determined! >> nice to see you. sorry to keep, uh... >> that's alright. it's just that it's a horrible day. how long do you need? >> i mean we really needed as much time as possible but it's been kind of difficult to try to get that. can we ask you some questions now? >> sure, sure let me dump this stuff. >> the one thing we've found difficult to talk to about with senior officials here, is the question of liability, nobody seems to be able talk about that even. what is the position? >> it's true, we cannot. as an official here in haiti, and as a civil servant, right now i cannot speak about it. >> who can we get answers from? >> i think it has to be at un headquarters. >> in new york? >> it is. i don't know whether you'll get an answer at this point, but the people who are reviewing this are at headquarters, they're in the legal department and they're

working with the secretary-general's office on this. >> we followed nigel's advice. it seemed like the only way of getting any answers for the families in haiti was to head to where all those decisions are seemingly taken - new york. can you say stocktopussy?

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we'd travelled from haiti to new york to get answers for the families who'd waited more than a year for the un to respond to their lawsuit over the cholera outbreak. but before we even arrived at un headquarters, we got word from mario's legal partners in the us that a decision had already been made. >> they sent me an email shortly before they made the public announcement, they sent me an email with the letter. >> what did it say? >> the letter was one paragraph about how the un was sorry about

the cholera and the harm it caused. several paragraphs about all the things they were doing to combat cholera, and then a paragraph at the end saying they were not going to respond justly to cholera victims. >> human rights lawyer brian concannon says he'd been expecting the un would try to avoid paying compensation, but that the lack of any explanation caught him completely off guard. >> it was also a slap in the face to the 660,000 haitians who have contracted cholera, and the 8,000 who have died so far, or at least their families. >> the un announced its decision to the world in a brief, 5-minute statement. there was no press conference and since then - as in haiti - there had been no further comment to the media. >> now i've asked several officials who can actually talk to us inside this building, and the one person we've been told we can interview is a spokesperson for the secretary general. >> claims found to be outside the scope of section 29 of the convention are

"not-receivable". the consequence of a finding that a claim is not-receivable is that the claim will not receive further consideration by the organization. >> that statement was very brief. >> it's a brief statement, it's a legal statement and that's about all we're going to say on that. >> but why is the claim "non-receivable" ? >> well it's not in the united nations practice to discuss the details of or responses to claims against the organization. >> so you don't have to explain yourselves? >> no. >> you're saying that not only do they not get compensation, but you don't even have to explain why? >> well, that's exactly what i said, that's the united nations policy. >> what would you say to a family member in haiti who has had somebody die as a result of this disease? >> i would basically say... as a un employee or as a human being? >> both? >> i would simply say, "i'm really sorry about your loss, i'm really sorry that cholera happened, we don't exactly know what the origins are but we're working as hard as we can to address the issue." >> but everybody knows what the origins

are! the scientific community is united... >> our... our panel told us that it was due to a confluence of circumstances... >> including being brought to haiti most likely by un peacekeepers... >> that's not what it said. >> wait a minute. so the un still maintains that nepalese soldiers weren't the most likely cause of cholera in haiti? we asked one of their own scientists. >> the most likely source of cholera into haiti was someone associated with the mirebalais minustah facility. >> danielle lantagne was one of the experts appointed by the un to investigate the nepalese base. >> they found a rage of evidence pointing towards the un peacekeepers including the type of cholera was very similar to an outbreak in nepal. >> since the time of our report, our conclusions have been significantly strengthened. the nepal strain of cholera was fully sequenced and compared to the haitian strain, and when they did that direct comparison it was found that of the 4

million base pairs in cholera there was only 1 base pair that was different between the two strains. and in genetics we consider that an exact match. >> as far we know the claims that they are giving us are non-receivable, and that's under international law. >> stone-walled by this official, we decided there must be someone at un headquarters who could explain the organization's decision. before security could shut us down. eventually, we found a more senior spokesperson. >> is there anyone else? because seriously he was literally reading from a piece of paper. >> it seems a little odd to me that you're interviewing me about the interview you had with my deputy. >> well, we're trying to get answers and he wasn't able to give any. he just said that's something i don't have answers to. >> well why do you think it would be any different with me? >> is there anyone who would have those answers? >> sebastian, you've asked me that question 3 times now and i think you know what the answer

is. (approaching camera) and i think it would actually be quite polite if you would switch this off now. yeah... don't you think? >> at every turn, the story from un officials was the same - outright refusal to accept any responsibility, yet a complete inability to explain why. it was the same from haiti to new york. from those on the ground, to those at the very top. >> mr. secretary-general! >> what explanation is there for the fact that there is no compensation to the families of victims? >> i think i have made it quite clear the reason why this case is not "receivable". >> was it your decision ultimately? whose decision was it in the end? >> oh yes, it was my decision but based on careful consideration. >> do you think it's the right decision? >> (pauses)yeah... i think so. >> but for the families of the victims? >> why don't you, why don't you talk to my legal counsel? >> so you're saying there is no possibility at all of speaking

with anyone from legal counsel? >> no... >> following the secretary-general's advice, i did put several calls in but was told the un's legal counsel was unavailable for comment. >> so we've spotted the secretary-general again in this room and we're going to try to catch him when he comes out. >> secretary, we haven't been given access to the office of legal counsel. you said we could get access to the... >> speak to my legal counsel. >> well we've just been told that the media office has said that they don't actually want us back in the building at all because of displeasure at the fact we've been asking questions to officials in the hallways. they've said that we're effectively banned from filming

in the united nations complex. >> on an intellectual level, the un's rejection of our claims was expected. but on an emotional level, the un's rejection was still very hard to take because you're left thinking about people in bocozel who lost their child, the family in sodeau who lost the father and mother and are condemned to generational poverty, and you think that their chances of getting justice have been reduced. >> in haiti - along with their sadness - the costs of burying their dead have left the family

that we met with mario and his lawyers severely in debt. their son's grave is in a cemeteryn's grave is in a close to their house - the death of the last male in the family has left them with no reliable income. they've just had to pull his 11-year old daughter out of school. the un's decision hadn't even been made when we first met this family, but it seemed they had a sense of what was coming.

apart from anger over compensation, what may be more worrying to officials back in new york is the lasting damage in haiti to the reputation of an organization that's supposed to stand for justice and equality around the world.