The Brussels Magistrate's Court Wednesday said it would decide by the end of January 2002 whether the complaints filed against the Israeli Prime Minister Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were admissible.
The court postponed hearings until December 26 and January 23, although officials did not elaborate.
A legal panel Wednesday put off hearings on arguments in the case charging Sharon with genocide, as an Israeli official implied the case risked damaging Belgian-Israeli relations.
According to the Belgian media, the Sharon case is causing tension in relations between Belgium and Israel.
"Although we Israelis have made great efforts not to mix the judicial process with our relations (with Belgium) ... it would be hypocrisy to pretend that this affair has not been a cloud on our relations," Israeli Foreign Ministry official Danny Shek was quoted as saying by AFP.
"It seems to us that the Belgian law has been politically exploited by the plaintiffs in an unacceptable way," he said.
The closed-door hearing by the trial committal chamber of the Brussels Court of Appeals was to have determined if Belgian courts had jurisdiction in the case brought by a group of Palestinians, said the agency.
The plaintiffs, 23 survivors or families of victims of the between 800-1,500 Palestinians massacred in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, accuse Sharon of responsibility in massacres.
The suit was brought under a 1993 Belgian law which allows war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide to be tried in Belgian courts, regardless of where the alleged crimes were committed, or the nationality or residence of the victims and accused.
Complaints have also been filed against former Congolese Minister Yerodia, Cuban President Fidel Castro and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
