Posted on 05/14/2003 2:41:38 AM PDT by kattracks
BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 14, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- A left-wing candidate in Belgium's upcoming parliamentary elections lodged a war crimes complaint Wednesday against U.S. Iraq war commander Gen. Tommy Franks and a U.S. Marine Corps officer, on behalf of 16 Iraqi civilians.Lawyer Jan Fermon presented the complaint against Franks and a Marine officer he identified as Col. Brian P. McCoy to the federal prosecutors' office despite recent changes in war crimes law to prevent such charges against Americans.
"This is not a symbolic action, my clients want an independent inquiry into what happened," Fermon told reporters has he arrived at the prosecutors' office. Fermon is running in Sunday's elections for the small, far-left Resist group.
The case has provoked anger from Washington. America's most senior military officer suggested the complaint and earlier charges against other U.S. officials could jeopardize Belgium's role as a host for NATO and European Union meetings.
"It's looked upon by the U.S. government as a very, very serious situation," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday on a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels.
"It ... clearly could have a huge impact on where we gather."
To head off such complaints, the government last month rushed through changes to laws introduced in the early 1990s to authorize Belgian courts to try genocide and other war crimes wherever they occurred.
Legal experts said the case against Franks and McCoy would be a first test for the revised law, and predicted it would be thrown out by the prosecutors' office.
"This could be just a spectacular way of catching attention in the media," said Prof. Jan Wouters, director of the Institute for International Law at the University of Leuven.
Two other leftist candidates in Sunday's elections, Dr. Geert Van Moorter and Dr. Colette Moulaert, found the 16 wounded or bereaved Iraqis in whose name the complaint was lodged, while working for a medical aid group in Baghdad during the war.
The war crimes laws were first used to target suspects in Rwanda's 1994 genocide who fled to Belgium, the former colonial ruler of the central African nation.
Since then, complaints have been brought against a string of world leaders including Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein, although none has gone to trial.
The Belgian parliament revised the law last month after complaints lodged against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, former U.S. President George Bush and current U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell soured relations with Washington and Jerusalem.
Under the new amendments, Belgian courts should refer foreigners facing war crimes charges to their own countries if they are democracies with a record of fairness in justice.
Fermon said he was optimistic that his claim would still be accepted.
He said the accusations against Franks focused on the bombing of civilian areas, indiscriminate shooting by U.S. troops when they entered Baghdad and the failure to stop looting. He charged McCoy with ordering troops to fire on ambulances.
The prosecutors' office will have to study the complaint before deciding whether to order an investigation into the charges.
By PAUL AMES Associated Press Writer
Is Gerhard Schroder suing him for patent violation?
Best response I've heard to this foolishness yet.
Oh, I forgot.
The Belgium fagots are better than any other people and only they deserve to be liberated!
I think that would be the right approach. But the meeting should take place just as we announce that NATO is moving its headquarters to London, and that all business will henceforth be conducted solely in English.
My sentiments, exactly.
Oh. And just who are your clients, Mr. Fermon. In a modern democracy the accused has the right to know the accuser. Or is this the Left's typical "show trial", that has a pre-determined outcome. What you are really asking for is an "inquisition", not a fair trail. You are, Mr. Fermon, one of the reasons Europe's always been a mess.
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