The International Court of Justice is to rule today on a request by the Republic of Congo to freeze a French human rights probe into Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso and three other leaders.

Congolese authorities are trying to get the international panel, based in The Hague, to stop a French court investigating allegations by human rights organisations that four Congolese leaders were involved in the disappearance of 350 civilians in 1999.

The missing 350, fleeing endemic violence in their country, sought refuge in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the larger eastern neighbour of the Republic of Congo.

They were said to have been arrested by Sassou Nguesso's security forces on their return to the capital Brazzaville and have never been seen since.

A French court in Meaux, east of Paris, has been conducting a judicial inquiry into allegations of crimes against humanity and torture, focusing on Nguesso, his Interior Minister Pierre Oba, Army Inspector-General Norbert Dabira and General Blaise Adoua, head of the Republican Guard.

Congolese authorities have asked court in The Hague - the main United Nations judicial body and arbitrator in disputes between states - to annul the French inquiry, arguing that it violates international law including sovereignty of states and legal immunity of heads of state.

But procedures to settle the fundamental issues could take years, so the Congolese authorities have for the present asked The Hague to freeze the French court inquiry on the grounds that these proceedings are damaging to Congo's international standing.

At an April hearing, French authorities denied that the Meaux inquiry prejudiced the Republic of Congo, pointing out that only Dabira had hitherto been the subject of French court proceedings.

The French representative pointed out in The Hague that the French court had only issued a non-binding invitation to Sassou Nguesso to testify, and that the French government had not even sent this to the Congolese president.

France basically insists on the competence of its courts under the 1984 international convention against torture.

But its competence depends on the presence in France of the person under investigation, and thus would apply here only to Dabira, who has an address in France. - Sapa-AFP.