- BRUSSELS (AFP) - Belgium's
highest court delivered a landmark ruling that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon can be prosecuted for war crimes -- but only after he leaves office.
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- Israel responded angrily to what one official called
a "scandalous" ruling, recalling its ambassador to Brussels for
consultations and summoning the Belgian envoy for a dressing-down.
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- The decision by the Cour de cassation, the top appeal
court, opened the way for several serving or ex-leaders around the world
to be tried under a unique Belgian law that allows for war crimes prosecutions
independently of where the offences took place.
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- The court ruled that "international custom does
not allow heads of government to be the subject of legal action in a foreign
state".
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- But it overturned a ruling made in June 2002 by a lower
court, which said that Belgium's "universal competence" law only
applies if the alleged perpetrator is in Belgium.
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- The lower court's ruling halted one of the most high-profile
suits brought under the law -- one filed against Sharon by 23 Palestinian
survivors of a refugee camp massacre in Lebanon in 1982.
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- The top court's ruling thus cleared the way for Sharon
to be tried in the massacre case once he ceases to be prime minister, regardless
of whether he is in Belgium or not.
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- It also cleared the way for a war crimes trial of Israeli
General Amos Yaron, who oversaw the Beirut sector in 1982.
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- The unique "universal competence" law, adopted
in 1993, enables Belgian courts to try cases of war crimes, crimes against
humanity and genocide regardless of where the incidents occurred.
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- It has attracted numerous lawsuits brought by victims
of alleged atrocities who one day may seek recourse in the fledgling International
Criminal Court.
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- Israeli public television quoted an official as calling
the Belgian court decision "scandalous" and warning that it threatened
to open a serious crisis between the two countries.
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- Ambassador Yehudi Kenar has been "called to Jerusalem
for consultations", a foreign ministry spokesman said, adding that
the Belgian ambassador to Israel, Wilfred Geens, had been ordered to appear
at the foreign ministry Thursday.
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- The massacre, in which up to 2,000 Palestinian refugees
were slaughtered in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, was
carried out by an Israeli-allied Christian militia during Israel's war
against Lebanon.
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- An Israeli tribunal in 1983 found Sharon, who was defence
minister at the time, to be indirectly responsible for the carnage. Sharon
was forced to resign.
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- One of the lawyers for the Palestinian survivors, Chibli
Mallat, was delighted that Sharon could eventually stand trial in Belgium.
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- "It's one of the most important rulings that there
has been in international law," she said.
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- Under the Belgian law, four Rwandans were found guilty
in 2001 of taking part in the 1994 genocide in their homeland, which left
an estimated one million people dead.
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- But last year's appeals court ruling effectively shelved
suits brought under the law against some 30 foreign leaders or ex-leaders,
including Sharon, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat and Cuba's Fidel Castro.
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- The New York-based lobby group Human Rights Watch hailed
the new ruling, which came as a surprise to legal observers in Belgium.
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- "It's a huge victory not only for the victims of
the Sabra and Shatila massacres but for all victims of grave crimes who
have put their hopes in the Belgian law of universal competence,"
HRW's Reed Brody told AFP.
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- The Belgian parliament was forced to reinterpret the
anti-atrocity law in response to last June's ruling, and a new version
is awaiting the approval of the House of Representatives.
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