After years of broken promises to fix an intolerable situation, Britain has finally amended its Universal Jurisdiction laws.
Under the former law, any 'activist' was able to go to court and get an arrest warrant against any foreign national visiting Britain for alleged 'war crimes'. As you can imagine, in the UK this was aimed almost exclusively at Israelis.Any present or former member of the Israeli government and or who had served in the IDF was liable to arrest and prosecution the minute they set foot in Britain.
In just two of many instances, Israeli Opposition leader Tzipi Livni was forced to cancel a 2009 visit to Britain because she served as foreign minister during the 2008-09 Gaza war.And a high level group of Israeli officers en route to the UK for a joint security conference was likewise forced to cancel in 2010 because of the same law.
Former British Labour PM Gordon Brown had promised the Israelis to repeal or amend the law numerous times,but never did, and the current British PM, Conservative David Cameron also dragged his feet about changing what amounted to a huge Do Not Enter sign for Israelis.
But the law has finally been amended. Now, it's required that such warrants have to be submitted to Britain's director of public prosecutions, who must agree to issue an arrest warrant in universal jurisdiction cases in which the alleged crimes were committed outside of Britain.
Queen Elizabeth II signed has signed the new law, which went into effect September 15th.
1 comment:
The only thing that surprises me is that they finally did this now. Israel must have something they badly want.
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