Israelis cancel UK visit for fear of arrest

A group of Israeli Army officers has cancelled a visit to Britain because London was unable to guarantee they would not be arrested for alleged war crimes under universal jurisdiction provisions, Israeli officials said yesterday. Four officers, including a major, a lieutenant-colonel and a colonel had been due to visit last week at the invitation of the British Army.

An Israeli official declined to specify the purpose of the visit but said that Israeli officers are invited to Britain "to assist in defensive technology in the military arena".

The incident has fuelled Israeli anger at the British Government for not yet following through on promised changes to the law so that Israeli officers and officials do not run the risk of arrest on UK soil. There have been several incidents in which visiting Israelis have been vulnerable to arrest.

News of the cancellation came as the Attorney-General, Baroness Scotland, was in Israel on a private visit where she met the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon.

"These officials were invited by Great Britain, but they will stay in Israel as long as we do not have a 100 per cent guarantee that they will not become objects of criminal lawsuits in that country," Ayalon said.

"This matter will shake the good relations between the two countries. The British must remember that such visits serve both countries."

Last month, it emerged that a London court had issued an arrest warrant against the former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, at the behest of pro-Palestinian activists. They had demanded the warrant on the grounds that Livni was responsible for war crimes during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last winter, in which an estimated 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died.

Livni, the leader of the Opposition Kadima Party, called off her trip, but the incident sparked a diplomatic row between Britain and Israel.

Under British law, courts are allowed to issue warrants for war crime suspects around the world, but Ayalon claimed that pro-Palestinian groups were "manipulating and abusing" the legislation.

Scotland said that the British Government "is looking urgently at ways in which the UK system might be changed to avoid this situation arising again and is determined that Israel's leaders should always be able to travel freely to the UK".

Palestinians and their supporters, however, oppose amending the law and argue that Israelis should be held accountable for alleged abuses and war crimes. "There's no reason why Israel should be singled out for special treatment," Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, told AP. "If they're accused of war crimes, we have a duty - and legislation - to prosecute."

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