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Belgian Court: Sharon Can Be Probed After Office By Tom Miles BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium's supreme appeals court ruled Wednesday that a genocide lawsuit against Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) could go ahead once he no longer enjoyed immunity as prime minister of Israel, the plaintiffs' lawyer said. The ruling opened the way for survivors of a 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees to press their case against the Israeli leader, whom they hold responsible for the deaths of hundreds of their kin in Israeli-occupied Beirut. "This is a victory for international justice and for the victims," Luc Walleyn, one of lawyers for the plaintiffs, told Reuters at the courthouse. The survivors had appealed against a lower court ruling last June that Sharon could not be prosecuted for the massacre by Israeli-backed Christian militiamen in the Sabra and Shatila camps because he was not in Belgium. The plaintiffs are using a Belgian human rights law which claims universal jurisdiction allowing the country's courts to try crimes against humanity and genocide, no matter where they were committed. Sharon was defense minister at the time of the massacre. In 1983, an Israeli commission found him indirectly responsible but Sharon was never prosecuted. Daniel Shek, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's director of European affairs, described the ruling as "very problematic." "The Belgian legal system is trying to bite off more than it can swallow," he said. The case has soured relations between Belgium and Israel for more than a year.
