Tory MP and organisation warn government ministers of ‘legal peril’ for complicity in war crimes against Palestinians
The International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has warned Tory PM Rishi Sunak of its intention to prosecute him and other government ministers for their complicity in Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people. Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, a director of the group, has said that he does not think his colleagues understand their ‘legal peril’ over their actions.
Mr Blunt told Sky News:
If you know that a party is going to commit a war crime – and this forcible transfer of people is a precise breach of one of the statutes that governs international law and all states in this area – then you are making yourself complicit.
And as international law has developed in this area, the fact of being complicit makes you equally guilty to the party carrying out the crime.
In a statement about its decision to pursue prosecution, the ICJP said that it had issued Sunak:
with a stark warning that UK government officials could be individually liable for their role in aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes. Sunak has been issued with the notice of intention to prosecute UK government officials, for their role in providing military, economic and political support to Israel, which has aided Israel’s perpetration of war crimes.
This remarkable development comes at a time when Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Unit have opened calls for evidence relating to war crimes in the region. In an incredible turn of events, this could lead to UK government officials being prosecuted for war crimes by Scotland Yard. Individuals could also be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.
The decision to prosecute comes in response to Israel’s directive to 1.2 million people in Gaza to immediately leave their homes in northern Gaza and move south. This order will result in mass forced displacement which may amount to both a war crime and a crime against humanity. The siege of Gaza, restricting electricity, food, water and other basic necessities, constitutes collective punishment, which is also a war crime under the Geneva Convention. At the same time, Israel has continued to bombard Gaza with massive and indiscriminate airstrikes, killing over 1,799 people, including 583 children.
The UK government has provided military assistance and economic and political support. Now that war crimes have been carried out, continuation of such support and assistance would mean that UK Government officials would be complicit in the commission of war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity. This complicity, formally known as ‘aiding and abetting’ war crimes, may mean that UK government officials are individually criminally liable for breaking international law.
ICJP Co-Director is Crispin Blunt MP, former Chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and former Justice Minister. He is a strong supporter of Prime Minister Sunak and wishes to divert him from a serious policy error and, enable him to express strong emotional support to Israel in the face of an appalling war crime that was a planned terrorist part of Hamas’s direction of last Saturday’s operation against Israel, whilst guiding Israel to accept the restraints that international law place on the democracies.
In an apparent effort to distance itself from Israel’s crimes, the government issued a statement that it backed Israel’s “right to defend itself” but that it expected Israel to take “all possible measures to protect ordinary Palestinians and facilitate humanitarian aid”. However, there is no sign that the UK will condemn Israel’s actions, let alone reverse its decision to provide military support to Israeli forces engaged in ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Meanwhile, both the Tories and the so-called Labour ‘opposition’ have supported Israel’s ‘right’ to cut off Gaza from water, food and medicines – another clear crime under international law. Starmer has banned Labour MPs from participating in protests of solidarity with Palestinians and has threatened party members with expulsion if they do so.
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