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IDF accused for crimes against humanity |
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Written by Webmaster
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Tuesday, 13 September 2005 |
Photo: biu.ac.il
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| Israeli army General wanted in the UK for crimes against humanity
British police at Heathrow airport was thwarted yesterday in its attempt to seize a former senior Israeli army officer Doron Almog. A British judge issued a warrant for the officer?s arrest, for alleged war crimes in occupied Palestinian lands.
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British detectives were waiting for retired Israeli Army General Doron Almog who was aboard an El-Al flight which arrived from Israel yesterday. Almog was tipped off about his impending arrest while in the air and stayed on the plane to avoid capture until it flew back to Israel. Scotland Yard detectives were armed with a warrant naming Almog as a war crimes suspect for offences that breached the Geneva conventions. In this particular case, his involvement in approving the killing of 14 innocent Palestinians, most of them children, with a one-ton bomb dropped on a residential neighborhood in the Gaza Strip (July 2002), was the reason for the warrant.
The police would have arrested him if he had set foot on British soil. The arrest warrant was issued on Saturday at Bow Street magistrates? court, central London. It is believed to be the first warrant for war crimes of this kind issued in Britain against an Israeli national.
International law states that Britain has a duty to arrest and prosecute alleged war crimes suspects if they arrive in Britain. According to the UK newspaper "Guardian", before granting the warrant a British judge decided his court had jurisdiction for the offences; that diplomatic immunity did not apply; and that there was evidence to support a prima facie case for war crimes.
Because Israel has not ratified the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court in The Hague, its army officials are exempt from being brought up on charges before that court. However, European countries like Belgium, Spain, Germany and Britain have passed national legislation giving their courts universal judicial authority with regard to crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts of genocide.
Under these laws, a country has the power to bring charges relating to such crimes against a foreign subject if the legal system in the subject's country of origin is unable or unwilling to handle such complaints.
This is exactly what happened in Israel. Petitions at the Israeli high court of justice for an investigation against Army officials are rarely investigated.
"We have lost our faith in the Supreme Court, and in its ability to deliberate matters related to the IDF's activities as an occupying power," Yishai Menuhin, a spokesman of the Israeli Yesh Gvul movement, was quoted in Haaretz today.
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