JUDICIAL CAPITULATION IN BELGIUM
Sharon and Yaron withdraw from all judicial proceedings

26 May 2003 -- Following the decision of the Belgian Supreme Court on 12 February 2003, the Brussels Appeal Court must again render a decision concerning the admissibility of the complaint lodged by 23 victims of the 1982 massacre in Sabra and Shatila. A request for indefinite postponement of the case, lodged by Mr. Adrien Masset, counsel for Messrs. Ariel Sharon and Amos Yaron, was rejected by the Appeals Court's decision of 6 May 2003. On the very eve of the new hearing of 27 May, Mr. Masset has just announced that his clients will no longer participate in the pre-trial hearings before the Appeals Court in Brussels.

Hoping that "political power" will "ensure the deferral [of the case] from the Belgian judicial authorities" to Israel, he informs the court that "the election of domicile in his cabinet by Sharon and Yaron have been withdrawn, and that they are no longer current for the future," in other words, at the request of the accused Mr. Masset is no longer representing them as counsel.

In effect, the lawyer for the Israeli accused has just announced their judicial capitulation. This latest move stands in sharp contrast to the adamant claims made by the defence of Sharon and Yaron in September 2002, when they accepted the legal debate with the conviction that their legal arguments would prevail.

Now that they have failed judicially, the accused are resorting to pressures on the purely political level. Mr. Masset states that the Belgian government should use the provision in the newly reinterpreted Anti-Atrocity law that allows the deferral, by government decision, of a case to another country if that country's courts and legal system will ensure effective access to justice for all parties concerned.

Notwithstanding the fundamental objection against this new mechanism itself -- which clearly violates the principle of the separation of powers -- it is obvious that in our case, a deferral to Israel cannot meet the criteria of access to justice for the victims: A fair trial against Israeli officials responsible for war crimes is obviously not accessible to the hundreds of Sabra and Shatila victims and survivors, including our 23 clients.

What is actually indisputable is the impossibility of the Palestinian natives, living in Beirut as refugees for several decades, to return to the country they had to flee, despite the clear rules under international law, let alone to be heard in court. This denial of basic rights is at the core of the Palestine-Israel problem, hence the need to address the accusations lodged by the Sabra and Shatila survivors in a neutral forum, such as that offered by the Belgian court, for the first time since the 1982 massacres.

We expect any newly formed Belgian government to remain outside legal proceedings despite the open and persistent pressure of the Israeli government to derail the course of justice. Since the case was lodged on June 18, 2001, we have respected and protected, on behalf of our clients, the judicial character of these proceedings.

Justice was consecrated in the decision of the Court of Cassation (Belgium's Supreme Court) in their favour in its historic decision on 12 February 2003, and the investigation should now proceed accordingly.

Although we regret this situation, the hearing tomorrow will proceed without the presence of a lawyer for the accused.

Chibli Mallat, Michael Verhaeghe, Luc Walleyn, 26 May 2003.

[The Case Against The Accused]