[855] in peace2
Sharon for war crimes
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Wed Jun 27 01:30:06 2001
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Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 01:30:02 -0400
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
From: The London "Independent"
Atrocity survivors ask Belgian court to indict Sharon
By Stephen Castle in Brussels
19 June 2001
Palestinian survivors of a massacre in Lebanon nearly 20 years
ago asked a Belgian court yesterday to indict the Israeli Prime
Minister, Ariel Sharon, for crimes against humanity over his role
in the carnage.
Taking advantage of Belgium's unusually broad laws on war crimes,
28 of those who survived the killings at the Sabra and Chatila
refugee camps outside Beirut filed a legal complaint with an
investigating judge in Brussels. He will probably take one month
to decide whether Mr Sharon and others should face charges for
involvement in the murders.
In 1982 up to 2,000 unarmed Palestinians in the camps were
slaughtered by a Lebanese Christian militia allied to the
Israelis. An Israeli inquiry found Mr Sharon, who was then
Defence Minister, "indirectly responsible" and he resigned.
Even if the case goes ahead, Mr Sharon would almost certainly not
be arrested if he went to Belgium. But the attempt to purse a war
crimes case has already caused a diplomatic incident, and the
Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, has told the Belgian
government that none of his fellow ministers will risk visiting
Brussels if the action proceeds.
That creates a headache for Belgium, which takes over the
European Union's presidency at the end of the month and will be
expected to play a leading role in Europe's efforts to help
broker peace in the Middle East.
One of the survivors, Souad Srour Al-Marai, gave harrowing
details of the massacre, which took the lives of most of her
family. She said: "My little sister, aged 18 months, raised her
hand and asked her mother to pick her up, she was frightened.
Then they started shooting at us.
"My little sister received a bullet in the head, my father was
hit in his chest but was still alive. My brothers and sisters,
Chadi [3], Farid [8], Bassam [11], Hajar [7], Chadia [18 months]
[and] also our neighbour were all killed by the first bullets."
The woman then said she was raped in front of her dying father
and left for dead.
The basis for the case lies in a law dating from 1993 that gives
Belgian courts jurisdiction over violations of the Geneva war
crimes convention no matter where they happened, even if they
involve no Belgian nationals. Earlier this month the legislation
was used to convict two nuns who played a role in the genocide in
Rwanda in 1994, fuelling a debate over the whole process of war
crimes prosecutions.
The Belgian government, concerned at the prospect of dozens of
new cases from around the world, and fearful of the political
implications, now wants to amend the law.
Vincent Van Quickenborne, a Belgian senator who is sponsoring the
case, said that "for Belgium as a state these facts cannot be
acceptable. We as a state should indict people and try them to
find out whether they have committed these acts."
Michael Verhaeghe, the lawyer who is representing the survivors,
said there was "sufficient evidence" to convict those
responsible, adding that "the facts in this case undeniably
reveal crimes against humanity".
Yesterday's legal action is the second against Mr Sharon to be
lodged in Belgium, but it is thought to stand a greater chance of
leading to a trial.
The 1982 massacre unfolded over three days when Israel allowed
its Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia allies into the refugee
camps. Mr Sharon had earlier claimed that there were 2,000
"terrorists" in the camps; Israel later claimed the Phalange were
sent into Sabra and Chatila to "mop up" the armed guerrillas
supposedly still there after the Palestine Liberation
Organisation's withdrawal from Beirut the previous month.
The subsequent Israeli Kahan commission report stated that
Israeli troops surrounding the camps knew what was happening.
Throughout the killings many of the victims were stabbed and a
large number of women were murdered after being gang-raped. Mr
Sharon was in overall command of the Israeli forces.
More than 400 of the dead were buried in a mass grave just inside
the entrance to the camps. Hundreds of others were buried
secretly during the massacre, many of them beneath Beirut golf
course.
