A Belgian court on Wednesday decided not to proceed with a case of crimes against humanity brought against Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, for his role in the 1982 massacre of at least 1,000 Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut.
The court ruled that the complaint was inadmissible because Mr Sharon was not in Belgium.
Chibli Mallat, the Lebanese lawyer for the 28 Palestinians who brought the case, said his clients would appeal against the decision.
"If they narrow down the law this far, then what is left of universal jurisdiction?" he asked. "What is left of the case of someone like Slobodan Milosevic [the former Serbian president, currently on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the Hague]?"
Mr Mallat argued that the decision went against the "spirit and text" of a 1999 law which allows Belgian courts to hear prosecutions in cases outside their normal jurisdiction but which concern crimes against humanity. Last year Belgium sentenced four Rwandans to between 12 and 20 years in jail for their role in the 1994 genocide of the country's Tutsi ethnic minority.
The Israeli government was jubilant at Wednesday's result.
"It's a lawsuit that started with more politics than law and it is lucky that the outcome is more law than politics," said Daniel Shek, the Israeli foreign ministry's director of European affairs.
"One nation cannot judge another nation," said Shimon Peres, Israel's foreign minister, who in 1982 was a strong critic of the massacre. "A nation that doesn't, fortunately, have to fight terror and war will hardly understand a nation that has to do it."
Souad Srour al-Mereh, one of the plaintiffs, said she was hopeful that the case could still go ahead. Now 33 and partially paralysed, she was raped and shot at the age of 14 and left for dead.
"The world should think of these poor victims," said Mr Mallat. "They were lured, after 20 years, into a system that was not courageous enough to offer them justice."
The Sabra and Shatilla massacre was carried out by Israeli-allied Christian militiamen, at a time when the Israeli army was in control of west Beirut after its invasion of Lebanon. An Israeli commission of enquiry led by Yitzhak Kahan found Mr Sharon, who was then defence minister, "personally responsible".
Copyright ©2002 Financial Times.
Dr. Laurie King-Irani is North American Coordinator of International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra & Shatila. For media queries, write to coordinator@indictsharon.net. For website queries, write to webmaster@indictsharon.net.
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