Dubai:Sunday, September 02, 2001

Belgium 'will not drop' Sharon case
Abu Dhabi |By A Staff Reporter | 02-09-2001
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A noted Belgian lawyer said yesterday his country will resist any pressure on it due to the filing a war crimes case against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a Belgian court.

Luc Walleyn, the Belgian lawyer who filed the case, said Belgium has been a pioneer in promoting the principal of universal jurisdiction, under which any criminal accused of international crime could be tried.

Walleyn, who was speaking at the Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow Up here, filed the case against Sharon for war crimes, on behalf of the victims of the 1982 massacre at two Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra and Chatilla.

He spoke of the history of trials for crime against humanity and defined different categories of international crime.

Explaining these categories, Walleyn said they include genocide, the intentional murder of an ethnic, racial or religious group, war crimes, grave breach of international humanitarian law as laid down in the Geneva Convention, crimes against humanity, systematic attacks against a civilian population involving murder, rape and forced disappearance.

"This kind of justice is only at the beginning of its development. But for the first time in history, dictators, military leaders and even soldiers should know they can no longer commit crimes without any risk of punishment," he said.

Walleyn considered the Sabra and Chatilla massacre a terrible racist crime. He said Arab civil organisations could play a key role in supporting the trial of Sharon, as such organisations did in the General Pinochet case.

Last week, Shebly Mallat, a Lebanese lawyer who is prosecuting Sharon, also spoke at the Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow Up and called for public and media support for the trial.

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