Another War Criminal* Escapes Britain *(yeah, yeah . . . “alleged”)
Sep 13
The Guardian is reporting that an Israeli general, subject to an arrest warrant on war crimes charges for taking reprisals against civilians in retaliation for a terrorist attack, was tipped off and escaped England without being arrested.
Scotland Yard was thwarted yesterday in its attempt to seize a former senior Israeli army officer at Heathrow airport for alleged war crimes in occupied Palestinian lands after a British judge had issued a warrant for his arrest.
British detectives were waiting for retired Major General Doron Almog who was aboard an El Al flight which arrived from Israel yesterday. It is believed he 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 Mr Almog as a war crimes suspect for offences that breached the Geneva conventions. . . .
Despite the alleged offences occurring in the Gaza Strip, war crimes law means Britain has a duty to arrest and prosecute alleged suspects if they arrive in Britain. The warrant alleges Mr Almog committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip in 2002 when he ordered the destruction of 59 homes near Rafah, which Palestinians say was in revenge for the death of Israeli soldiers. The warrant was issued by senior district judge Timothy Workman after an application by lawyers acting for Mr Almog’s alleged Palestinian victims. According to legal sources, before granting the warrant Mr Workman decided his court had jurisdiction for the offences; that diplomatic immunity did not apply; and there was evidence to support a prima facie case for war crimes.
A few observations intrude here: several years ao, England also released the repulsive Chilean mass-murderer and military dictator Augusto Pinochet (after Margaret Thatcher personally congratulated him on the coup in which elected President Salvador Allende was killed and Pinochet installed as unelected President for over 20 years, saying “I know very well it was you who brought democracy to Chile”); Pinochet was held on war crimes charges but released by the British government as “medically unfit for trial”, after which he was noted springing enthusiastically off his plane in Chile. Now Almog somehow finds out about a British government warrant while his plane is in the air and is then allowed to remain on board the plane and return to Israel. This means that someone with knowledge of the warrant had to contact Almog in-flight, and that the British government refused to pull him off the plane when it landed. This makes at least twice that a right-wing military figure, accused of violent attacks on civilians, has “miraculously” slipped through the fingers of the British government when the British courts stood ready to do their duty under international treaties that the UK is supposedly bound by.
As for the plane business, I don’t know the legalities here, but it surprises me that a wanted criminal can simply sit on a plane on British territory and claim that he is immune to arrest. I didn’t think that foreign aircraft in transit were regarded as sovereign territory (I may be wrong here). The US, certainly, has claimed the right to arrest foreign nationals who are simply changing planes at an international air terminal inside the US, without clearing customs into the country; how does merely being on the plane grant some sort of magical immunity? And are they telling us that any regular citizen can just sit on a plane, refuse to leave, and be immune to arrest in a foreign port - or would be allowed to do so? I don’t think so. (Note also that El Al is the Israeli national carrier, meaning that the plane crew could have put Almog off the plane, in obedience to a valid arrest warrant, if the Israeli government had been willing to obey the law. That they did not demonstrates - entirely unsurprisingly, of course - that Israel acted to protect an accused criminal in its own defense forces against a valid arrest warrant of an ally nation.) It seems as if the law doesn’t apply if you’re (a) “anti-terrorist” and (b) a friend of the government.
#1 by HPLC_Sean at September 13th, 2005
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Yo KTK,
Scotland Yard DOES have the authority to arrest someone on a jet of foreign origin on UK soil. The Yard didn’t do it because the charges are WEAK to say the least and the government offical that signed the warrant is under the thumb of pro-Islamist NGO lobbyists. Besides, wasting resources arresting an Israeli on trumped up charges when the fundie Islamists are the ones killing innocent Londoners would make The Yard a laughing stock.
It isn’t hard to see who the real enemy is. They’re the ones killing innocents.
Maj. Gen. Almog is a war hero with an impecable record of serving and defending both Israelis and lawful Palestinians. He has also established support groups and shelters for retarded children (not just Jewish children either). Well-funded pro-Islamist groups are trying to paint Israelis as war criminals using political influence and underhanded rhetoric. They are using the term “war criminal” to summarily soil his reputation.
Trust me, if there were a decent case against him, they would have arrested him on the plane. The fact is, there is no case against Almog. There’s just accusations.
#2 by Kevin T. Keith at September 13th, 2005
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They had a warrant (issued on a court’s explicit finding of prima facie evidence sufficient to support the charges). They were at the airport gate for the purpose of arresting him. Then they just decided they couldn’t be bothered to actually walk down the boarding ramp?
Maybe they do it differently in the UK, but in the US, Federal Marshals don’t get to evaluate arrest warrants and decide for themselves if they’re serious enough to enforce. (Nicely enough, federal judges don’t get to do that, either - according to our wannabe Chief Justice - meaning that, in fact, you have no protections whatsoever against abusive enforcement. It’s morning in America.)
However it happend, it’s obvious that there was collusion between elements of the British government and the Israeli government to assist a named suspect to evade an active, valid warrant literally on the threshhold of arrest. So much for British justice.
#3 by Matthew Goggins at September 14th, 2005
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Kevin,
Assume for the sake of argument that demolishing the 59 homes was a war crime.
Do you really think it warrants creating an international incident with Britain’s strongest ally in the War on Terror besides the United States and Australia?
I don’t. We’re fighting a war against Islamo-fascists, not against Israelis. If Gen. Almog had committed violence against civilians themselves, and not just their property, then I would be in favor of arrest, investigation, and trial. But not over 59 houses.