Norway's chief prosecutor considers Israeli war crimes case

[ 24/04/2009 - 03:49 PM ]

OSLO, (PIC)--

After the filing on Wednesday of a war crimes case against Israeli leaders by a group of Norwegian lawyers on behalf of people and families affected by the war on Gaza the chief prosecutor said the complaint will be studied.

"We will follow normal procedure, which means we will look through the complaint to determine whether or not to send it to the police to carry out a formal investigation," Siri Frigaard, chief prosecutor at Norway's National Authority for Prosecution of Organized and Other Serious Crimes, told Reuters on Thursday.

The complaint by Norwegian lawyers has been filed under a law which allows foreigners to be prosecuted in Norway over war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity even when the alleged criminal acts are committed outside the country. The lawsuit which includes charges of practicing organized terrorism and using internationally banned weapons such as white phosphorus against Gaza people, asks for the arrest and extradition of former Israeli premier Ehud Olmert as well as his foreign affairs minister Tzipi Livni, and war minister Ehud Barak in addition to other senior Israeli military officers.

On Wednesday an Israeli report said that its internal investigations concluded that it did not violate international law during the war on Gaza but admitted that there was a very small number of "unfortunate incidents" such as the airstrike that killed 21 members of the same family which, the report said, was "unavoidable".

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