Belgian lawyer Lock Walin, who represents the victims of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in the Belgian lawsuit against Sharon, told reporters on Friday that the prosecutor had enough evidence to ensure the war crimes convictions of Sharon and a number of Israeli leaders.
“But we should not expect the abduction of Sharon over the few coming years,” added the lawyer during a press conference in Cairo.
“From my perspective, the Sabra and Shatilla massacre was neither a war nor a politically driven crime, but rather a crime of genocide driven by racial motives,” said Walin, who was in Egypt at the invitation of the Arab Preparatory Conference Against Apartheid currently underway in Cairo.
He added that politics had not motivated the initiative to file a war crimes case against Sharon. Rather, he said, it was a legal form of intervention, since Belgian law gives the courts authority to track genocide throughout the world. The case is based on this concept, he said, in addition to precedents and international conventions against torture and apartheid.
Walin said the case was filed this June 18 and approved by the Belgian prosecutor general just days later.
The Belgian government recently refused to amend the law on which the case was based, despite the efforts of parties intent on preventing the arrest of prime ministers or those with diplomatic immunity.
Palestinian Mohammed Abu Rdaineh, who survived the massacre, and Bahiyyiddin Hasan, the director of the Cairo-based Center for Human Rights, also participated in the conference.
For his part, Abu Rdainah said he would offer his testimony “as a witness and not as a plaintiff, for certain considerations.”
“I was only six years old when the massacres were committed,” he said. “The Israeli army surrounded the refugee camps, deploying forces at the entrances and exits to prevent civilians from entering or leaving the camps. Then the Israelis lit up the sky with phosphorus flares and called on the people through loudspeakers to surrender, despite the fact that only unarmed people remained in the camps after the PLO forces had left.” “Then the Lebanese [Christian] forces, the Phalangist militiamen, entered the camps, besieged the houses and separated men, women and children,” said Abu Rdaineh. “We were under the impression that these were Israelis who had come to arrest some people and interrogate them, but we discovered later on that they were the Lebanese forces who had come to kill us.”
“I saw my father’s uncle killed, with his body thrown on the road along with other bodies. Then the soldiers put women and children, including me, in lorries and took us outside the camp to Beirut Sports City. There, they stopped us every few steps and ordered us to line up across the walls, threatening to shoot us.
“Finally, an Israeli officer detained us in a room throughout the night, after which we learned that everyone who remained in the camps had been killed.”
Responding to a question about his family, Abu Rdainah said, “my sister was pregnant and her abdomen was sliced open during the massacre so that her baby came out, which left her mute; my father was killed; and my mother lost her memory. I was a kid at the time, and I was expecting those who were killed in the massacre to “return,” but I learned later that they wouldn’t be back.
“We still live the massacre in our camps. Sharon deprived me of having a father or a mother, and I hope he will be taken to court like Milosevic. Those who harmed the Palestinians should be taken to the court. If Sharon does not stand trial for political reasons, the Palestinian Intifada and coming generations will take the revenge,” he added.
Responding to questions by journalists, Walin said that “the prosecutor has enough evidence to convict Sharon and other Israeli leaders for their responsibility for the genocidal crimes in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps.
“The responsibility for the crimes, whether direct or indirect, is not the core issue. Even if some leaders were indirectly responsible, we should not let them go unpunished. The Israeli report on the massacres mentioned that the Lebanese Phalangist forces committed the crimes in coordination with the Israeli army, which closed the camps, lit up the sky and dug out the mass graves.
“The Phalangist militiamen transported dozens of people from the refugee camps and accompanied them to unknown destinations in front of the Israeli army. The involved Israelis are taking the matter with great seriousness, as exemplified by Sharon’s lawyer, who resigned from his post as a government employee to make himself available to defend Sharon.”
Walin ruled out the possibility of arresting Sharon in the next few years, pointing that the suit did not target Sharon alone, but also all those involved in the crime, whether Israeli or Lebanese.
The lawyer said the prosecutors did not require new evidence, but added that the prosecutors would welcome all those who wanted to cooperate with them or with the court – Albawaba.com
