The lawsuit filed by some Palestinian survivors of Sabra and Shatila massacres against the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon now faces a vague fate after the Belgian parliament passed a law canceling the “International Specialty Law”. Shibli al Mallat, a Lebanese lawyer, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the survivors, condemned the move labeling it as “another result of Israeli pressure”.
The new law - passed by a large majority in Belgian Parliament (89 yes votes, 3 no votes and 34 abstentions) - decreases to a great extent the powers given to the Belgian legal system to pursue those who commit crimes against humanity - regardless of place and nationality of criminals or victims.
The law will be presented to the Belgian congress for approval before the end of this week.
Under the provisions of the now-obsolete law, several lawsuits have been filed in Brussels against prominent world leaders including US president George Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and US joint chief of staff - general Richard Myers.
Mallat – an International lawyer of Lebanese extraction – filed the suit on behalf of 23 plaintiffs who survived the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982 against Sharon, who was the then Israeli Minister of Defense. Mallat lashed out at the cancellation of the law, calling it a “move that depicts the corrosion of a government’s system as far as the punishment of war crimes is concerned.”
The lawyer who initiated the case proceedings in June 2001 asserted that the law cancellation couldn’t have come except by Israeli pressure on Belgium.” He told Al Bawaba “this cancellation was the result of publicly announced Israeli political pressure.”
Israel has indeed exerted intensive pressure on Belgium to persuade it to cancel the ‘specialty law’ – an issue that has caused somewhat of a crisis between the two countries. The US has also put similar pressure on Belgium, threatening to transfer NATO’s headquarters out of Belgium to another European capital after a 37 year address in Brussels.
Mallat declined to speculate on the fate of the lawsuits he filed preferring to wait until he reviews the details of the newly passed law.
“We should study the new law with scrutiny to see its impact on the case, which the Belgian Judicial system - at its highest level - has already accepted,” said Mallat, who was referring to the decision [to accept the case] taken by the Justice Committee of the Belgian Congress on January 23, 2003.
According to the new law, pursuit of defendants will not be possible unless the case brought against them is connected to Belgium. Additionally, only Belgians and those who have resided in the country for at least three years will be eligible to file suit under the new regulation.
It is noteworthy to mention that the decision to revoke the ‘specialty law’ was taken on July 12, 2003 - immediately after the formation of a new coalition government in Belgium led by liberal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and socialist foreign minister Luis Mitchell. (Albawaba.com)
