Livni willing to risk travel to UK and 'face arrest'
Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:01:15 GMT


Israel's opposition leader and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni says she is willing to visit Britain despite the risk of her being arrested for war crimes against the Palestinians.

The visit is meant to push the White Hall into changing a law which has occasioned an arrest warrant against her.

A British court's ruling last year convicted Livni of links to atrocities committed by Israel during its late December 2008 assaults on the Gaza Strip which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead. The court issued her an arrest warrant which would come into effect should she visit Britain.

Livni said last night that she was willing to “take the bullet.”

“Britain has obligated itself to me personally that this subject will be taken care of and fixed. Now is the time,” the British newspaper The Times reported on Monday.

London has downplayed the prospects of an arrest by apologizing to Tel Aviv and promising "urgent" legal adjustments to reverse the verdict.

Any reversal would require amending the universal jurisdiction law which allows individuals in Britain to ask courts of law to issue arrest warrants for offensives such as war crimes committed abroad.

The daily, however, doubted any “swift change” in the law, quoting Justice Secretary Jack Straw as suggesting that the sensitivity of the legal situation involved could require its postponement until after the country's elections.

HN/MB

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118712&sectionid=351020202