- BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Survivors
of the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees during Israel's 1982
invasion of Lebanon filed a case in Brussels Monday accusing Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon of crimes against humanity.
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- The 52-page complaint, also accusing Sharon of genocide
and war crimes, was handed over to Investigating Judge Sophie Huguet, who
will decide whether the case is admissible.
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- ``We hope that Mr. Sharon will be brought to justice,
will be tried and will defend himself,'' Chibli Mallat, a Lebanese lawyer
representing the 23 Palestinian and Lebanese plaintiffs, told Reuters.
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- Sharon is being pursued under a 1993 Belgian law which
allows war criminals -- whatever their nationality and wherever the crimes
were committed -- to be tried in Belgium.
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- The law, extended in 1999 to cover human rights violations
and genocide, strips government ministers of all immunity from prosecution.
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- ``RESPONSIBILITY'' FOR MASSACRE
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- Mallat said Sharon bore personal responsibility for the
massacre, which took place following Israel's invasion of West Beirut after
Israeli-allied Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel was assassinated.
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- A 1983 Israeli state inquiry found Sharon, then the defense
minister, indirectly responsible for the killing of hundreds of Palestinian
men, women and children at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
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- The slaughter took place after the Israeli army allowed
Israeli-backed Christian Phalangist militiamen to enter the camp, ostensibly
to search for Palestinian gunmen.
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- ``Civilians were taken as targets of a military operation
and brutally massacred,'' Michael Verhaeghe, a Belgian lawyer jointly representing
the plaintiffs, told a news conference.
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- ``We are confident that a criminal investigation will
show the responsibility of Mr. Sharon.''
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- Souad Srour al-Mere'eh, a survivor of the massacre, traveled
to Brussels to personally file the complaint.
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- Reading a statement in Arabic, she recounted how gunmen
shot dead most of her family and gang-raped her.
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- Walking with the aid of crutches, with a bullet still
lodged in her spine, Mere'eh called for justice to be done:
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- ``First justice and then peace. Money always disappears
but justice will last.''
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- ARREST UNLIKELY
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- Sharon's aides insist that he and other Israeli commanders
never anticipated the massacre would happen. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres Monday branded as scandalous a BBC program which suggested Sharon
could be tried for war crimes.
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- Lawyers for the survivors said bringing the case was
no mere symbolic gesture, but admitted it would be difficult to physically
bring Sharon to face trial in Belgium.
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- ``The execution of an arrest warrant could pose problems,''
Verhaeghe told reporters.
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- He said that even if the investigating judge decided
to issue an international arrest warrant for Sharon, other countries might
not recognize Belgium's universal jurisdiction.
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- If Sharon were to visit Belgium under an official invitation
extended earlier this month by the Belgian government, he could not be
arrested because the invitation was made before the filing of the complaint.
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- Sharon canceled a planned June 6 visit because of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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- The complaint is the second of its kind to be filed against
the Israeli leader in a month. The first was brought in Brussels by two
Arabs and has yet to be ruled admissible.
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- The maximum sentence for the crimes alleged in the cases
is life imprisonment.
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- Earlier this month, a Belgian court convicted four Rwandans
of war crimes committed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in the first case
to be successfully brought before a Belgian jury.
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