May 21, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 18,1424

BRUSSELS, May 20: The Belgian government decided on Tuesday to pass on to American prosecutors a lawsuit filed in Brussels against the US commander in the Iraq operation for alleged war crimes, government officials said.

The Belgian governmment took the decision on the advice of the federal prosecutor’s office, where the suit was filed last week against US General Tommy Franks, the office of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said.

Seventeen Iraqis and two Jordanians filed the suit under Belgium’s “universal competence” law, which allows charges to be brought regardless of where the alleged crimes took place.

The lawsuit alleges that US troops in Iraq fired on ambulances, did not show due care in avoiding civilian casualties and failed to safeguard Iraq’s cultural heritage.

The United States decried it as “ludicrous” and demanded that the Belgian government move to dismiss the case.

The government on Saturday pledged to block the suit, which Verhofstadt considered “a political abuse of the universal competence law.”—AFP