universal jurisdiction
The court case was brought by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in response to Israel's dropping of a one-ton bomb on the residence of prominent Hamas official Salah Shehade
01.07.09 - 10:04 -
Hamas official Salah Shehade was killed in the 2002 attack. / EFE
The Spanish judiciary agreed on Tuesday to shelve its investigation of a 2002 Israeli airstrike in Gaza that left 15 dead, all but two of them civilians.
The matter was one of a dozen international cases that have been taken up by Spain's National Court under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
The decision comes a few days after the lower house of Spain's Parliament overwhelmingly approved a bill to limit the international activity of the country's courts to cases involving Spanish victims or defendants residing in the Iberian nation.
But judicial sources said Tuesday's ruling had nothing to do with the bill.
The court case was brought by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in response to Israel's dropping of a one-ton bomb on the residence of prominent Hamas official Salah Shehade.
Killed in the July 22, 2002, attack along with Shehade were his wife, daughter and bodyguard, as well as 11 other people. One-hundred-and-fifty others were injured in the blast, some of them seriously.
In his January ruling accepting the case for consideration, National Court Judge Fernando Andreu said the bombing represented an "attack against the civilian population" and, as such, a crime against humanity subject to universal jurisdiction.
Spain's judiciary first invoked that principle in 1998, when Andreu's National Court colleague Baltasar Garzón indicted erstwhile Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Though that effort never bore fruit, a Spanish court has convicted and sentenced an agent of the 1976-1983 Argentine junta.
The accused in the Shehade case included Israel's then-defence minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, and six senior military officers.
Andreu said he decided to accept the case after receiving "no response" when he asked Israeli authorities if they were pursuing an investigation of the 2002 bombing.
The Spanish Attorney General's Office, however, said the Israelis had conducted an investigation and contended the National Court didn't have jurisdiction.
Now, the 18 members of the National Court's criminal chamber have sided with the AG office, though the decision can be appealed to Spain's Supreme Court.
One of the plaintiffs in the suit, the Committee of Solidarity with the Arab Cause, said it will appeal the decision on the grounds that the Israeli authorities did not carry out a judicial investigation "worthy of the name."
Spain's foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, said the government "respets and accepts" the decision to shelve the Gaza investigation.
Moratinos had assured Israel back in January that Madrid would seek to minimize the impact of the National Court decision to hear the suit against senior Israeli officials and military officers.
