Assembly/AU/11 (XIII) Annex II Page 16   has held that state immunity does not bar the prosecution of a former head of state for torture pursuant to the Convention Against Torture 1984.114 On the other hand, other courts (e.g. the Belgian Court of Cassation115 and lower courts,116 the French Court of Cassation,117 the UK magistrates’ courts118 and the Spanish Audiencia Nacional119) and prosecutorial authorities (e.g. the Danish prosecuting authorities,120 the prosecutors of the Tribunal de Grande Instance and Court of Appeal of Paris121 and the German Federal Prosecutor122) have upheld immunities in these or similar circumstances. 25. Beyond these legal limitations, certain practical limitations to the exercise of universal jurisdiction exist. The first is the difficulty of collecting evidence in relation to crimes committed abroad, especially when the state where the crime is alleged to have occurred refuses to co-operate. Prospective evidentiary problems are a major reason why few prosecutors in EU Member States have initiated proceedings on the basis of universal jurisdiction to date. A second practical limitation is the awareness on the part of many prosecuting authorities and courts of the diplomatic sensitivities at stake when the conduct of a serving, and in some cases former, state official is involved.                                                              114 R v Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, Ex parte Pinochet Ugarte (No 3) [2000] 1 AC 147, 24 March 1999, House of Lords. 115 Abbas Hijazi et al. v Sharon et al., 127 ILR 110, 121, 12 February 2003, Court of Cassation. 116 A number of complaints filed in Belgium by private parties, before the Sharon case and the amendments of 5 August 2003 to the Code of Criminal Procedure, were dismissed on the basis of respect for the immunity of a foreign head of state: see the complaints against Cuban President Fidel Castro, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, Mauritanian President Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, President of the Central African Republic Ange-Félix Patasse and President of the Republic of Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso. A complaint filed against Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority, was dismissed on analogous grounds. For more on Belgian practice in relation to universal jurisdiction, see www.ulb.ac.be/droit/cdi under ‘Dossiers’. 117  SOS Attentats et Béatrice Castelnau d’Esnault c. Gadafy, 125 ILR 490, 508, 13 March 2001, Court of Cassation.  118  Re Mugabe, ILDC 96 (UK 2004), 14 January 2004, Bow Street Magistrates’ Court; Re Mofaz, 128 ILR 709, 12 February 2004,  Bow Street Magistrates’ Court; Re Bo Xilai, 128 ILR 713, 8 November 2005, Bow Street Magistrates’ Court.  119 Hassan II, 23 December 1998, Audiencia Nacional (Central Examining Magistrate No 5); Obiang Nguema et al., 23 December 1998, Audiencia Nacional (Central Examining Magistrate No 5); Castro, 4 March 1999, Audiencia Nacional (Plenary) and 13 December 2007, Audiencia Nacional (Plenary); Rwanda, 6 February 2008, Audiencia Nacional (Central Examining Magistrate No 4) (immunity of President Paul Kagame). 120 In 2001 the Danish authorities rejected an application for the prosecution of Carmi Gillon, the Israeli ambassador accredited to Denmark, who, in his former capacity as the head of the General Security Services (GSS or Shin Bet), was alleged to have been responsible for acts of torture carried out by the service. The Ministry of Justice stated that the special rules on diplomatic immunity enshrined in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 trumped the general rules embodied in the Torture Convention to the extent of the inconsistency. 121 On 16 November 2007, the District Prosecutor (Procureur de la République) of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris announced that he would not investigate a complaint filed with him alleging that former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had ordered and authorised torture. The decision was explained by the Public Prosecutor (Procureur Général) of the Court of Appeal of Paris in a letter of 27 February 2008 as being based on considerations of immunity. A complaint filed against President Mugabe in France in 2003 was also rejected, out of respect for the immunity of a foreign head of state. 122 See the decision of the German Federal Prosecutor of 24 June 2005 refusing to open an investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity committed while in office by the former head of state of China, Jiang Zemin, and the similar refusal of 28 April 2005 in respect of the Vice-President of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Version 31 March 09(FINAL)