TILTING AT WINDMILLS: SPAIN NEEDS JUSTICE

Friday, January 30, 2009

SPAIN NEEDS JUSTICE

The Spanish High Court says it will launch a war crimes investigation into seven Israelis, including a former defence minister, over a 2002 attack that killed 14 civilians and a Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip.

Spanish law allows the prosecution of foreigners for such crimes as genocide, crimes against humanity and torture committed anywhere in the world. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called the Gaza legal case "delusional" on Thursday.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is bringing the case against then-Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and six military personnel involved in the decision to drop a one-tonne bomb from an F-16 plane into a housing block on July 22, 2002.

Although the blast killed Hamas commander Salah Shehada the human rights organisation said it was only bringing the case on behalf of the families of 14 civilians killed, nine of whom were children, and 96 injured.

Palestinian Centre's lawyer Gonzalo Boye said: “If Israel would like to be a civilised nation it will have to accept the rule of law, and the rule of law is not served with a 1,000-kg bomb.

“I do not justify the actions of Hamas. I think both parties are guilty. The only people that are innocent are the civilian victims. We have excluded from our criminal case that person from Hamas who was the target of the Israeli army.”

Judge Fernando Andreus will lead the investigation which will last several years. The case was taken up by after Israel declined to reply to a question from the court last August as to whether the seven would be tried at home.

This is all well and good. I fully approve of Israel and Hamas being called to account for the slaughter of innocents. However is this the job of the Spanish court system and should it not be left to an international court of justice?

I beg this question as Spain’s judges are about to go on strike in protest at their workload and lack of resources. Many important cases are suffering lengthy delays because of the huge backlog. The Huelva child Mari Luz Cortes died after being kidnapped by a paedophile who should have been in prison at the time if the court system had been working effectively. Yes I believe in justice – but Spain needs justice first before its courts go show boating on the international stage.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: I agree. An international court sits in the Hague and these type of cases should be heard there.; January 30, 2009 at 5:23 PM

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TILTING AT WINDMILLS

Sancho Panza is much less learned but a good deal saner than his master.

"At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

"Fortune," said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, "is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."”