AFP, LONDON
The British government indicated on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be arrested on an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant if he traveled to the UK.
The ICC on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant in response to accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the militant Palestinian group’s attack on Oct. 7 last year.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman refused to be drawn specifically on whether UK police would detain Netanyahu, telling reporters he would not “get into hypotheticals in relation to individual cases.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomes Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, not pictured, at Downing Street in London on Wednesday last week.
Photo: EPA-EFE
However, he added that “the UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law and indeed international law.”
Britain signed the Rome Statute, the international treaty that created the ICC, in 1998 and ratified it three years later.
The UK’s ICC Act 2001 stipulates that when a government minister receives a request from the ICC for the arrest of an indictee they “shall transmit the request and the documents accompanying it” to an appropriate court.
“If the request is accompanied by a warrant of arrest and the appropriate judicial officer is satisfied that the warrant appears to have been issued by the ICC, he shall endorse the warrant for execution in the United Kingdom,” the act adds.
The act has not yet been used, because someone charged by the ICC has never visited Britain, officials say.
It is not clear whether the UK court process begins after the ICC issues the arrest or once the indicted person lands on British soil.
“We would obviously fulfil our obligations under the act,” Starmer’s spokesman added.
