- The Israeli government has ordered an urgent assessment
of whether its politicians and soldiers could face arrest and trial for
war crimes while travelling abroad.
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- The move follows a report by the justice ministry that
singled out Britain, Spain and Belgium as the most likely to prosecute
Israeli officials who breach international law. But the government fears
there is a growing trend towards global justice that could see Israelis
effectively barred from visiting a host of states.
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- "We are building a map of all those countries that
might give us a headache," said Ra'anan Gissin, spokesman for the
Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. "They want to arrest Israelis
who are enforcing the law while the real war criminals, like Saddam Hussein
and Yasser Arafat, get away scot free."
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- The report was ordered after lawyers presented the cabinet
with a report commissioned in the wake of a failed legal action in the
Belgian courts last year accusing Mr Sharon of war crimes over the massacres
of Palestinians in refugee camps 20 years ago.
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- Last month, Scotland Yard launched an investigation of
Israel's new defence minister, Lieutenant General Shaul Mofaz, during his
short visit to Britain.
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- Amnesty International has called on signatories to the
Geneva conventions to put on trial Israeli soldiers "responsible for
war crimes" as defined in the Geneva conventions, such as unlawful
killings, torture and the use of Palestinians as human shields in Jenin
and Nablus earlier this year.
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- · Binyamin Netanyahu, the new Israeli foreign
minister, yesterday called for Mr Arafat's removal after a gunman killed
five Israelis, including a mother and two children, in a kibbutz on Sunday.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2002
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