Belgium gets war crimes cases against Bush, Blair

Belgium said yesterday it had received lawsuits against US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair under a controversial war crimes law.

But it said it had forwarded the cases to the defendants' countries, reducing their chances of reaching a court.

Belgium has come under harsh criticism especially from the United States for the law, which empowers its courts to try foreigners for serious war and human rights crimes no matter where they were committed.

In an effort to discourage so-called "propaganda" cases, it reformed the law to allow a lawsuit to be sent to a defendant's country if that country were democratic with a legal system that could handle it properly.

Belgium's justice ministry said legal authorities had received lawsuits against Mr Bush, Mr Blair and a host of senior US officials for crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ministry was able to send the lawsuits to Britain and the US yesterday under the recent change to the genocide law, ministry spokesman Joannes Thuy told Reuters.

"The renewed law makes its possible to send a lawsuit to a country if it has a legal system which can deal with this kind of complaint," he said.

One lawsuit accused Mr Bush, Mr Blair, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and US General Tommy Franks of crimes against humanity in the recent Iraq war, a ministry statement said.

A second lawsuit was against Mr Powell, also regarding the Iraq war.

A third was against Mr Bush, Mr Rumsfeld, US Attorney General John Ashcroft, US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz for crimes against humanity in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr Thuy declined to say when or by whom the lawsuits were filed.