Ο ισραηλινός υπουργός `στο φόβο της σύλληψης» ακυρώνει τη βρετανική επίσκεψη

Από Donald Macintyre στην Ιερουσαλήμ

Ένας ανώτερος ισραηλινός υπουργός έχει γυρίσει κάτω από μια πρόσκληση για να επισκεφτεί η Μεγάλη Βρετανία λόγω των φόβων που θα μπορούσε να έχει συλλήφθουν στις δαπάνες πολεμικών εγκλημάτων που προκύπτουν από τη δολοφονία ενός κορυφαίου στρατιωτικού διοικητή Hamas πέντε έτη πριν.

The Israeli foreign ministry advised Avi Dichter, the Public Security minister, that what it described as an “extreme leftist” group was likely to file a legal complaint over the July 2002 bombing attack in Gaza on Saleh Shehadah which killed at least 13 civilians.

Mr Dichter, who had been due to speak at a seminar in King’s College London, was at the time head of the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet, which helped to plan the attack. The bombing, which was internationally criticised – including by the US – because of the civilian loss of life, was described after an internal Israeli investigation as a “mistake”.

While Mr Dichter is the first minister to have cancelled a trip for such reasons, the official advice to him followed other cases in which senior generals have refrained from visiting Britain because of similar fears of private legal actions leading to the issue of an arrest warrant.

Asked about the Shehadah bombing in an interview with The Independent in 2005 before he entered politics, Mr Dichter said it had never been intended to kill civilians and insisted that several previous attempts on the life of the Hamas leader were postponed because of intelligence that “he was surrounded by innocent people”. In the event the victims included Mr Shehadah’s wife and three children.

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