2 - 8 August 2001
Issue No.545
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 2 - 8 August 2001 Issue No.545 |
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In a trap
After initial scorn, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is now worriedly preparing to face war crimes charges in Belgium. Rasha Saad reports
The Israeli Prime Minister is taking seriously the possibility of finding himself the subject of an international arrest warrant from Belgium for his role in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon. This week, Sharon's office announced that he had hired a Belgian defence lawyer, Michele Hirsch, to deal with the legal issues for the lawsuit filed in Brussels charging him with crimes against humanity. A Belgian examining magistrate, Patrick Collignon, opened the probe earlier this month after finding merit in two complaints filed against Sharon for his role in the massacres. As defence minister at the time, Sharon led Israel's invasion of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and allowed right-wing Lebanese militias to enter Palestinian refugee camps, despite knowing that they intended to carry out a massacre.
Between 16 and 18 September, 1982, the militias killed, raped or tortured thousands of unarmed Palestinian civilians. Other Palestinians simply disappeared. An Israeli investigation in 1983, conducted by the Kahan Commission, found Sharon "indirectly" responsible for the deaths.
The complaints in Belgium were filed by Lebanese and Palestinian survivors of the massacre. They accused Sharon of war crimes and genocide under a 1993 Belgian law that allows Belgian courts to prosecute foreigners for human rights abuses committed abroad. A Belgian court recently sentenced two Rwandan nuns for complicity in acts of genocide in Rwanda.
Sharon has tried to present the case against him as a national rather than a personal question. "By attacking me personally, they are looking to attack Israel and the Jewish people. But we will stop it," Sharon told reporters last week.
His lawyer, Hirsch, played the same tune. The case is "a breach of the sovereignty, even the judiciary, of the state of Israel," she said. Hirsch also said that Collignon should not handle the case, claiming that it has already been investigated by the Kahan Commission which, according to her, "presents all the guarantees of a judicial institution."
But in a statement signed by Chibli Mallat, Michael Verhaeghe, and Luc Walleyn, the three lawyers representing the massacre survivors, and obtained by Al-Ahram Weekly, Hirsch's position is described as "confusing and ill-founded."
The lawyers argued that the Kahan Commission "had no judicial powers, and there were no judicial decisions taken in Israel or anywhere else [to prosecute those responsible for the massacre)]." They added that, since Sharon was not judged in court, the legal rule that a suspect cannot be charged twice for the same crime "does not apply."
According to them, the commission was empowered to impose "disciplinary or administrative penalty..[and] or to pay damages to the victims." They also pointed out that recommendations by the committee to establish a follow-up by a group of experts never materialised.
The three lawyers also refuted Hirsh's allegations that the commission did not find any evidence that Sharon was responsible for the massacre. They said that the commission "did not declare Sharon's innocence. On the contrary, it clearly concluded that he held personal responsibility."
Sharon, along with Israeli officials, had originally ignored the possibility that he might be summoned to appear before a Belgian court as a war criminal. The Israeli justice minister, Meir Sheetrit, said in a recent interview that "we [Israel] are not taking it [the case against Sharon] seriously. They are not entitled to [try Sharon]. Can Israel do this [to any other world figure]?"
Actually, it can and it has. For a long time, Israel has actively pursued Nazi war criminals. In the late 1961, Israel tried Adolf Eichmann for crimes against Jews and sentenced him to death. At that time, Israel said that some crimes were universal and that they must be prosecuted no matter where they were committed. It is merely this same argument which is now being used against Sharon.
A Belgian lawyer representing the Sabra and Shatila plaintiffs arrived in Israel earlier this month to collect testimony against Sharon, and an independent investigator appointed by the Belgian courts is expected to follow soon. If enough material is gathered to indict Sharon, the third step in the case will be Sharon's arrest and trial.
With growing demand worldwide for domestic law to be used against genocide and crimes against humanity, Sharon may not be the last Israeli official pursued. Earlier this week, the Israeli foreign ministry warned that prosecutors in several European countries were now prepared to reach far beyond their own frontiers to try political figures accused of gross crimes. Accordingly, the ministry has compiled a list of countries where its political and military leaders could face legal challenges under war crimes law.
Confirming this tendency, lawmakers in Denmark last week threatened to file a complaint under the terms of a UN Anti- Torture Convention against Israel's ambassador to Denmark, Carmi Gilon, who was chief of Israel's security service, Shin Bet. In a recent interview, Gilon said he had authorised torture of Arab suspects while head of Shin Bet.
The Israeli army also reported that cases were being prepared against current Israeli Army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz and Air Force Commander Major General Dan Halutz following their recent military actions against Palestinians during the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
Though the Israeli foreign ministry did not name countries, Spain and the United Kingdom are believed to be on the list. They both have similar laws to Belgium that allow war crimes suspects to be tried. In 1998, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was put under house arrest in Britain while courts debated a Spanish extradition request to try him for crimes against humanity. British courts dismissed his claim that he was entitled to full immunity as a former head of state, but refused to extradite him to Spain, citing health reasons.
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