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Doron Almog addresses the JINSA thinktank in 2004. (JINSA photo)
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| By israelinsider staff and partners September 13, 2005 |
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The former head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip said Mondagy he was warned by diplomats not to leave an aircraft that had landed in London after a tip-off that British police were waiting to arrest him on war crimes charges.
Reserve Maj. Gen. Doron Almog said he arrived in London Sunday on an El Al flight for a scheduled three-day visit with Jewish communities aimed at raising funds for a center in Israel for brain-damaged children.
"We were about to get off the plane, then one of the stewards came up to me and said the pilot asked that I disembark last," he told Israeli Army Radio. "After some time, the chief steward said that the Israeli military attache was on his way and wanted to speak to me. I phoned him and he told me not to get off the plane."
Almog said he was told that a British Muslim group had filed an allegation of war crimes arising from his command of the military in Gaza from the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000 until July 2003.
The attorney who filed the charges, Daniel Machover, is an Israeli-born British man whose parents immigrated to Britain in 1967. In a telephone interview with Channel 2 TV, he said his firm is gathering evidence all the time and would not hesitate to file charges against other Israeli officers.
"Doron Almog is only one of these individuals," Machover said. "This is not an issue about Israel or Palestine. This is an issue about justice and about the proper application of criminal law."
During Almog's term, Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on the home of a Hamas leader, killing the man, an assistant and 14 civilians, nine of them children.
Almog said that following the advice of the Israeli military attache, he and his wife remained on the plane and flew back to Israel on its return.
Officials at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv refused to comment on Almog's story. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it was taking the incident seriously and seeking clarifications from British authorities.
A spokesman for London's Metropolitan Police refused to comment on the warrant.The Foreign Office also declined to comment, saying it had nothing to with the case.
But the Hickman and Rose law firm, representing the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, issued a statement on its Web site confirming an arrest warrant had been issued for Almog for acts allegedly committed as part of Israel's "belligerent occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories."
"The Palestinian victims are devastated that Doron Almog has evaded British justice," the statement added.
Last year, activists in Britain sought an arrest warrant against Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz during a visit to London. They accused the former army chief of responsibility for the death or injury of more than 50 people, including British peace activist Tom Hurndall, who was shot dead by troops during a Gaza raid in April 2003.
A judge refused to issue a warrant on the grounds that Mofaz enjoyed diplomatic immunity.
Almog said any Israeli officer could be at risk of arrest in Britain for having performed his duty.
"They could do this tomorrow to any officer who has served in the Israeli army over the past five years and has fought the hard fight against terror," he said.
Robbie Sabel, a former legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said it was unlikely that the British police would have arrested Almog.
"Any country can bring to trial people accused of war crimes, but there is a great deal of doubt whether a British court would issue an arrest warrant," he told the radio. "Courts in organized countries do not act on malicious litigation and this was definitely malicious litigation."
Israeli ex-pat lawyer now pursues ambassador
The British Guardian newspaper reported Monday morning that Machover has demanded that a criminal investigation be opened against Israel's ambassador in London, Zvi Hefetz, and the Israeli embassy staff, for helping Almog avoid arrest.
Machover demanded that the investigation focus on the question of who leaked the information to the Israeli embassy, and how an Israeli diplomat managed to communicated to Almog and inform him of the arrest threat.
Human rights group Amnesty International also criticized British police for not arresting Almog. "He should have been arrested. According to British law there is no reason not to arrest him the minute he was on British soil," the group in a statement.
The far left Israeli group Yesh Gvul told Ynet that "the train has left the station, with the injunction in England against the former southern commander, Doron Almog, on suspicion for war crimes. Eight further cases aimed at other Israeli officers have already been presented to police in England," said the group.
"These are the first planks and the train is long. The High Court, which has so far evaded holding a session on IDF war crimes, should see itself responsible for the fact that the search for justice is conducted in England today, and not in the halls of justice in Israel," a Yesh Gvul representative told Ynet.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herziliya, said, "an Israeli citizen could not step onto British soil because he was a soldier in the past. This is not acceptable to me as justice minister and we don't plant to ignore it."
"It is my intention to deal see that the Europeans solve the issue," she said.
Yesh Gvul group said that its members have submitted complaints to a British court against IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon.
The AP contributed to this report.
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