Lawyers for a Palestinian who claims he was tortured in an Israeli jail are seeking a Dutch arrest warrant for former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon, a human rights activist said Tuesday.
The lawyers are appealing Dutch prosecutors' decision not to investigate Ayalon when he visited the Netherlands last May. Ayalon is a minister without portfolio and the former head of its Shin Bet security service, which is responsible for intelligence activities in the Palestinian territories.
The case is the latest example of Palestinians appealing to outside courts under a principle known as universal jurisdiction, which says some crimes are so serious they can be prosecuted anywhere, not just in the country where they were committed. Khalid al-Shami alleges he was permanently seriously injured after being tortured while jailed in Israel for 50 days early in 2000.
Raji Sourani, director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, said in a telephone interview that Ayalon bears responsibility for the alleged torture because he was head of Shin Bet at the time.
Dutch lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld said she filed the case Monday with the Court of Appeal in The Hague. The court did not immediately return calls seeking confirmation, but it has the power to order prosecutors to open an investigation.
Ayalon was defiant Monday. "I am proud of everything I have done in all my years in the war on terror, including my years at the head of the Shin Bet," he said.
The Palestinian rights center says al-Shami, a construction worker from Gaza, was arrested Dec. 31 at the Erez checkpoint while on his way to work. The group has not said why he was arrested.
"It is absolutely irrelevant," Sourani said. "What is relevant is that he was tortured. Nothing can justify that."
Al-Shami claims he was held at Ashkelon prison and subjected to interrogation sessions ranging up to 40 hours.
He further alleges he was subjected to low temperatures, stretching and being bound to a small chair by his hands and feet for long periods, Sourani's group said in a statement.
Dutch lawyers say a preliminary probe into whether Ayalon had immunity as an Israeli government minister took too long - allowing him to leave the country in May.
Al-Shami's lawyers said in a statement they have now asked the appeals court to order an investigation and to issue an extradition order or an international arrest warrant to secure his presence in the Netherlands during any trial.
There have been a handful of cases based on universal jurisdiction in the Netherlands, but none against a suspect who was not a Dutch resident or visiting the country.
Other high profile attempts to bring such cases in other countries also have faltered.
In 2005, Doron Almog, a retired Israeli general, refused to get off a plane in London after he was tipped off that he was about to be arrested by British authorities over a 2002 air strike that killed a Hamas leader and 14 others, nine of them children. He flew straight home.
In 2001, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced a lawsuit in Belgium over his alleged role in a 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. He was never convicted.
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