Israel: Defense Minister Barak Escapes British Arrest for War Crimes

Israel: US Urges Investigation of War Crimes Allegations

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A bit of a tricky consideration for Anglo-Israeli talks: British lawyers for 16 Palestinians are seeking an international arrest warrant for Israel's defence minister.

Still, Ehud Barak, followed by reporters and demonstrators, met British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Minister David Miliband at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJFuRb-qdX4[/youtube]

Amidst the Goldstone Report's conclusion that Israel had been responsible for war crimes during its offensive in Gaza, solicitors asked a district judge at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court to issue a warrant for Barak's arrest under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, alleging that Barak had committed offences against the 1957 Geneva Conventions.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense responded that Barak enjoyed diplomatic immunity "due to his being a minister in the government" (although media reports said Barak had been warned about the impending legal action and urged to leave the UK for France by Israeli officials).

The Guardian reports that, despite the official Israeli statement, lawyers from two London law firms believe the warrant that the International Criminal Court issued in May 2008 for the arrest of Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan accused of committing war crimes in Darfur, offers a precedent. However, the British court rejected the appeal, accepting the arguments of the British Foreign Office that Barak was a state guest and not subject to such lawsuits.

Freed from the prospect of a jail term, Barak praised Israel's offensive strategy:

We do not intend to let terror win.. We will not apologize in any way for our just struggle against terrorism. We will do everything possible so that the representatives of Israel, security officials and soldiers of the IDF will continue to freely travel the world. The theater of the absurd whereby those who defend their citizens need to be on the defensive has to end. Otherwise, the world is likely not only to give a prize to terrorism, but to encourage it.

The Lockerbie Case: Did Libyan Oil get al-Megrahi Released?

The story over the release of Libya's Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, continues to the point of near-obsession in Britain. The latest framing is whether the British Foreign Office told Libyan counterparts that it, and the British Prime Minister, did not want al-Megrahi "to die in prison".

Ali Yenidunya keeps his eye on the wider story over the economic context for the al-Megrahi case --- WSL.

Oliver Miles, the former UK ambassador to Libya, has told The Times that the Scottish and UK governments may have done “some kind of deal” with Libya to release Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.

Miles, noting al-Megrahi’s lawyers applied on 12 August to the Scottish court to drop the appeal appeal against his conviction, even as the BBC was breaking the news that he was to be released, said, "I think there may have been some kind of deal. One part of the deal was to have the appeal dropped and the other part was the release on compassionate grounds." However Miles accepts the legal context of a release of al-Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, on compassionate grounds:

I don’t think there was a deal involving business. I think on that ministers are telling the truth. What they are saying is perfectly compatible with what the Libyans are saying.

However, leaked letters between Jack Straw, the British Justice Minister, and his Scottish counterpart Kenny MacAskill do point to an economic incentive for al-Megrahi's released. The exchange states that the return of the Lockerbie bomber to his home was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom”.

On 26 July 2007, Straw had written to MacAskill to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. At the same time, a May 2007 deal for oil and gas, potentially worth up to £15 billion, between British Petroleum and the Libyan Government was being held up by Tripoli.

On 19 December 2007, Straw wrote to MacAskill to abandon the exclusion of Megrahi from the prisoner transfer agreement:

I had previously accepted the importance of the al-Megrahi issue to Scotland and said I would try to get an exclusion for him on the face of the agreement. I have not been able to secure an explicit exclusion.

The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.

So, in this case, did oil and politics mix?