Israel will not allow war crime trials over Gaza: PM
| DATE: 2009-10-13 | PRINT | SHARE
The hawkish premier was speaking days before the UN Security Council was to raise the report, which accused both Israel and the Gaza Strip's Islamist Hamas rulers of committing war crimes during the 22-day war at the turn of the year.
"Our first mission is to head off this attack," Netanyahu told the opening of the winter session of parliament, the Knesset.
"This warped document... written by this warped committee undermines Israel's right to self defence. This report encourages terror and endangers the peace," he said, repeating comments he made at the annual UN General Assembly.
"I want to make it clear -- Israel will not take any chances for peace if it can't defend itself," he said.
Netanyahu also said that Israel will not allow a situation in which its political leadership during the war and military officials would face trial over the conflict that killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
"We will not agree to a situation where (ex-premier) Ehud Olmert, (defence minister) Ehud Barak and (ex-foreign minister and now opposition leader) Tzipi Livni, who sent our soldiers to defend our cities and citizens, will sit on the defendants' bench in The Hague," he said of the International Criminal Court.
"We will not agree to a situation where IDF commanders and soldiers are branded war criminals after they defended the citizens of Israel with bravery and honour from a cruel enemy," Netanyahu said.
The UN report, released by an independent international fact-finding mission headed by former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone last month, accused Israel and Palestinian armed groups of committing war crimes during the war that erupted last December 27.
The UN Security Council is due to begin holding its regular monthly debate on the Middle East on Wednesday, with the session widely expected to discuss the findings of the Goldstone report.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon supports a Palestinian proposal to reopen debate in the Human Rights Council on the report, his spokeswoman Michele Montas said on Monday.
She said Ban discussed the issue during a telephone conversation with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday.
Tamil Tiger suspects on trial for Paris racket
PARIS, Oct 12, 2009 (AFP) - Twenty-two suspected Tamil Tiger rebels went on trial Monday for running an extortion racket among Paris's ethnic Tamil diaspora to fund their separatist struggle in Sri Lanka.
The defendants include Nadaraja Matinthiran, the alleged leader in France of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is accused of extorting some five million euros (7.4 million dollars) from the country's 75,000 Tamils.
Also in the dock is a group called the Tamil Coordination Committee in France, believed to be a legal front for the LTTE, which has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union since 2006.
Experts believe the Tamil Tigers exert a controlling influence over the political life of the 1.5-million-strong world Tamil diaspora, in many cases levying a "revolutionary tax" based on household size and income.
Most of the Paris suspects were arrested in April 2007 and charged with criminal conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, financing of terrorism or racketeering to finance terrorism.
Defence lawyer Gilles Piquois called at the outset for the case to be thrown out, arguing that the LTTE was not considered a terrorist organisation by the Sri Lankan government in 2007 when the charges were brought.
Sri Lanka lifted the terrorist designation for the Tamil separatists in 2002 following a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire, but reinstated it in 2009 after the truce agreement broke down.
Government forces overran the Tigers' last jungle holdout in northeast Sri Lanka in mid-May, ending their four-decade struggle for an independent Tamil homeland, one of Asia's longest-running ethnic conflicts.
The Paris trial is set to run until October 28.
| DATE: 2009-10-13 | PRINT | SHARE
JERUSALEM, Oct 12, 2009 (AFP) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would not allow its citizens to be tried for alleged war crimes over the Gaza war and that adopting a damning UN report on the offensive endangered the stalled peace process.
The hawkish premier was speaking days before the UN Security Council was to raise the report, which accused both Israel and the Gaza Strip's Islamist Hamas rulers of committing war crimes during the 22-day war at the turn of the year.
"Our first mission is to head off this attack," Netanyahu told the opening of the winter session of parliament, the Knesset.
"This warped document... written by this warped committee undermines Israel's right to self defence. This report encourages terror and endangers the peace," he said, repeating comments he made at the annual UN General Assembly.
"I want to make it clear -- Israel will not take any chances for peace if it can't defend itself," he said.
Netanyahu also said that Israel will not allow a situation in which its political leadership during the war and military officials would face trial over the conflict that killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
"We will not agree to a situation where (ex-premier) Ehud Olmert, (defence minister) Ehud Barak and (ex-foreign minister and now opposition leader) Tzipi Livni, who sent our soldiers to defend our cities and citizens, will sit on the defendants' bench in The Hague," he said of the International Criminal Court.
"We will not agree to a situation where IDF commanders and soldiers are branded war criminals after they defended the citizens of Israel with bravery and honour from a cruel enemy," Netanyahu said.
The UN report, released by an independent international fact-finding mission headed by former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone last month, accused Israel and Palestinian armed groups of committing war crimes during the war that erupted last December 27.
The UN Security Council is due to begin holding its regular monthly debate on the Middle East on Wednesday, with the session widely expected to discuss the findings of the Goldstone report.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon supports a Palestinian proposal to reopen debate in the Human Rights Council on the report, his spokeswoman Michele Montas said on Monday.
She said Ban discussed the issue during a telephone conversation with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday.
Tamil Tiger suspects on trial for Paris racket
PARIS, Oct 12, 2009 (AFP) - Twenty-two suspected Tamil Tiger rebels went on trial Monday for running an extortion racket among Paris's ethnic Tamil diaspora to fund their separatist struggle in Sri Lanka.
The defendants include Nadaraja Matinthiran, the alleged leader in France of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is accused of extorting some five million euros (7.4 million dollars) from the country's 75,000 Tamils.
Also in the dock is a group called the Tamil Coordination Committee in France, believed to be a legal front for the LTTE, which has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union since 2006.
Experts believe the Tamil Tigers exert a controlling influence over the political life of the 1.5-million-strong world Tamil diaspora, in many cases levying a "revolutionary tax" based on household size and income.
Most of the Paris suspects were arrested in April 2007 and charged with criminal conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, financing of terrorism or racketeering to finance terrorism.
Defence lawyer Gilles Piquois called at the outset for the case to be thrown out, arguing that the LTTE was not considered a terrorist organisation by the Sri Lankan government in 2007 when the charges were brought.
Sri Lanka lifted the terrorist designation for the Tamil separatists in 2002 following a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire, but reinstated it in 2009 after the truce agreement broke down.
Government forces overran the Tigers' last jungle holdout in northeast Sri Lanka in mid-May, ending their four-decade struggle for an independent Tamil homeland, one of Asia's longest-running ethnic conflicts.
The Paris trial is set to run until October 28.
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