Immunity Ruling Is a Setback to Belgium

The International Court of Justice ruled Thursday that government ministers charged with war crimes can be protected from prosecution by diplomatic immunity, dealing a major blow to Belgium’s attempt to put Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on trial.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Jerusalem said the landmark ruling supported the Jewish state’s position that Belgium’s war crimes proceedings against Sharon should be halted.

“For our part we will continue with our proceedings in the Belgian court until we persuade it of the justice of our cause,” spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari said.

The Sharon case is based on complaints from survivors of the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon.

Sharon was defense minister when hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the two camps south of Beirut were slaughtered by a Lebanese Christian militia allied with Israel. An Israeli inquiry into the massacres found Sharon indirectly responsible, prompting his resignation.

Criminal proceedings in Belgium have also been brought against Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, and former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

“Jurisdiction does not imply absence of immunity,” said Judge Gilbert Guillaume, the world court’s president.

The International Court of Justice said a foreign minister cannot be tried in a foreign court because “throughout the duration of his or her office, [the minister], when abroad, enjoys full immunity from criminal jurisdiction.”

Jan Devadder, a Belgian government lawyer at Thursday’s hearing, said it was up to the Belgian Parliament to amend or repeal the genocide law.

The genocide trials are based on a 1993 law empowering Belgian judges to hear war crimes and genocide cases regardless of where they occurred or who committed them.