War crimes case against Yerodia "inadmissible"

Belgian judges ruled on Tuesday that the case against a former foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi, who had been accused of war crimes and genocide, was inadmissible. They based their judgment on an article of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1878, which stipulates that cases against foreigners relating to offences committed abroad can only be tried if the foreign national in question is on Belgian soil at the time the case is brought. The case against Yerodia was brought under a 1993 law that allows war crimes and crimes against humanity to be heard in Belgium regardless of where the alleged offences took place or the plaintiff's country of residence. Yerodia was accused along with the late DRC president, Laurent-Desire Kabila, former Information Minister Didier Mumengi and former communication manager, Dominique Sakombi. The case was initiated after Rwandan and Congolese Tutsis alleged that Yerodia had incited hatred against them in speeches referring to "vermin" and "extermination". Yerodia reportedly made the comments shortly after Tutsi-led rebels attacked the DRC capital, Kinshasa, in August 1998. Yerodia said he was referring to invading forces from Rwanda and Uganda, who were backing the rebels, and not to a specific ethnic group. After the DRC brought the matter before the International Court of Justice (ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the UN), the ICJ found on 14 February 2002 that "the arrest warrant of 11 April 2000, and its international circulation, constituted violations of a legal obligation" of Belgium towards the DRC, "in that they failed to respect the immunity from criminal jurisdiction and the inviolability" which Yerodia enjoyed under international law. But on 26 March, the Belgian public prosecutor, Pierre Morlet, argued that Yerodia could nevertheless be sued in Belgium on the basis that the events had occurred before the ascent to power of Yerodia as a minister, and that Yerodia was no longer a minister. Morlet also contended that the link with Belgian soil was irrelevant, although the law of 1993 was not "totally clear about that point", the Belgian lawyer of a plaintiff against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said. Many cases have been lodged in Belgium against several world leaders, including the former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, Iraqi President Saddam Husayn, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Many human rights defenders now fear that all these cases could be dropped. "The decision goes against the spirit of the law of 1993, which was precisely aimed to be an exception to the law of 1878," said Georges-Henri Beauthier, counsel for a group of plaintiffs against Yerodia. Beauthier has decided to take the case to the Cour de Cassation, Belgium's final court of appeal. The only successful trial so far under that law took place last year, when four Rwandans were sentenced by a Brussels court for their role in the 1994 genocide. The Rwandans were on Belgian soil at the time the charges were filed.