Headline: Sharon begins to take war-crimes lawsuit seriously
Byline: Nicholas Blanford Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Date: 07/30/2001
(BEIRUT, LEBANON)
On a dark September night in 1982, Suad Srour, a 17-year-old
Palestinian, suffered an ordeal of unspeakable horror. Israeli-allied
Lebanese Christian militiamen burst into her simple home deep inside
Beirut's Shatila refugee camp, raped her, and shot dead her father and
five of her siblings.
The Lebanese militiamen had been ordered to cleanse the Palestinian
camps of Sabra and Shatila of "terrorists." The exact death toll for
the massacre remains unknown: estimates vary from 800 and 2,000.
The man who issued the order was Israel's defense minister at the time,
Ariel Sharon, now prime minister of Israel. Nineteen years later, Mr.
Sharon faces the prospect of setting an international legal precedent
by becoming the first serving prime minister to stand trial for crimes
against humanity. And it seems he is beginning to feel the heat.
Last month, 28 Palestinian survivors of the massacre - including Ms.
Srour - filed a lawsuit in a Belgian court against Mr. Sharon and other
Israelis and Lebanese considered responsible for the killings.
The plaintiffs took advantage of a 1993 Belgian law that gives local
courts jurisdiction over violations of the Geneva war crimes
convention, allowing claimants to seek cases against foreigners
suspected of crimes against humanity, no matter where they occurred.
A 1999 amendment to the law removed the immunity from prosecution
usually reserved for serving heads of state.
"This made it pretty clear that Sharon could not use his immunity to
avoid being indicted," says Chibli Mallat, a Lebanese specialist in
international criminal law and one of two lawyers to file the lawsuit.
The Belgian court swiftly decided that the case merited a full
investigation, pending the serving of indictments. Last week, Patrick
Collignon, a Belgian investigating magistrate, began hearing testimony
from the survivors of the massacre.
In response, Sharon, who had originally dismissed the lawsuit, hired a
Belgian lawyer in the growing realization that he could soon face
indictment.
If Mr. Collignon decides the case should go to trial, he has the option
of issuing a secret indictment against Sharon.
This means the indictment would not be made public, in the hope of
catching the Israeli premier unawares as he goes about his normal
diplomatic business.
"That's why Sharon is so worried," Mr. Mallat says. "If Sharon is in
Spain and the indictment is prepared in secret, it's possible that the
Spanish authorities will arrest him for extradition to Belgium."
If found guilty, Sharon faces life imprisonment and may have to pay
compensation to the survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
Israel is taking the threat of possible prosecutions so seriously that
it has begun to draw a map of countries where Israeli leaders could
face trial for war crimes. Israel fears that military officials, such
as Lieutenant General Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli chief of staff, may face
indictments for the deaths of civilians in the 10-month old Palestinian
intifada in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
But Israelis aren't the only ones who have reason to fear the lawsuit
over Sabra and Shatila. The Israeli Kahan Commission - which originally
found that Sharon bore personal responsibility for the massacre,
leading him to resign - also named the Lebanese militia commander, Elie
Hobeika.
Mr. Hobeika was head of intelligence for the Lebanese Christian
militia. It is widely believed he was tasked with sending his
militiamen into the camps to carry out the massacre, under order of the
Israelis. Although he has not been named in the Belgium lawsuit, the
suit draws upon the findings of the Kahan Commission, and declares that
any Israeli or Lebanese found "responsible" for the massacre could be
charged.
Mr. Hobeika later switched his allegiance from Israel to Syria and
served as a Lebanese government minister from 1991 to 1998. Today, he
has retired from politics and is a successful businessman. But, like
Sharon, his blood-soaked past has returned to haunt him.
Hobeika emerged from the shadows recently to claim innocence in the
massacre and express his willingness to travel to Belgium to testify in
court.
"My name appeared in only one place: the Kahan commission," he said. "I
have two things in my possession: evidence that proves my innocence,
and information that tells a different story from that told by the
Kahan Commission."
It remains unknown, however, what fresh evidence Hobeika possesses.
But for the survivors of the massacre, even the possibility of seeing
Sharon in court cannot dispel the horrors they experienced 19 years ago.
"The Western world cannot imagine the agonizing moments we went
through," says Suad Srour. "We have been living in anguish all these
years, waiting for our mental scars to heal."
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