Speaking of Reuters, Steven den Beste notices another chapter in the long-running story of AP vs. Reuters, or, how to report the same story with completely opposite results:
Belgium has a law on the books which states that it takes upon itself the power to try anyone anywhere in the world for war crimes. They've gotten a lot of steam for that, including an adverse ruling against them by the European court. But the law remains on the books, and for several years now Palestinian activists have been trying to use it to bring about criminal prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
At a certain point it became something of an embarassment and eventually lower courts there dismissed the case on a technicality (Sharon, as a head of state, has diplomatic immunity). Appeals have now reached the Belgian Supreme Court. The Associated Press reports:
Belgian Court bars Sharon war-crimes case
The Belgian Supreme Court threw out an appeal by a group of Palestinians on Wednesday to try Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for war crimes over a 1982 massacre in Lebanese refugee camps.
The final court of appeal backed a ruling of a lower appeals court that dismissed the case on technical grounds last June.
The lower court argued Sharon did not live in Belgium and could not be tried for war crimes and also enjoyed diplomatic immunity as the head of the Israeli government.
The group of Palestinians had sought to bring Sharon to trial under a 10-year-old Belgian law that allows the country's courts to try war crimes committed anywhere.
Wednesday's ruling marks an end to any possible investigation into allegations Sharon was responsible for the 1982 massacres at two refugee camps outside Beirut.
That seems straightforward enough, doesn't it? The case is dead and the investigation will be closed until such time as Sharon leaves office and emigrates to Belgium, at which point he would come under the jurisdiction of Belgian law.
Well, lookie at how Reuters reported it:
Belgian Court: Sharon can be probed after Office
Belgium's supreme appeals court ruled Wednesday that a genocide lawsuit against Ariel Sharon 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.
It's interesting that the AP is actually reporting what happened. Reuters, on the other hand, is piping the Palestinian line; it's acting as a strait propaganda conduit and reporting the Palestinian's lawyer's spin as if it were straight news.
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