Top ’Israeli’ Judges Face War Crimes Suit for Authorizing WB Wall

Local Editor

A war crimes suit was filed in Chile against three "Israeli" Supreme Court judges for authorizing the construction of the West Bank separation barrier in the Bethlehem area, Palestinian sources involved in the lawsuit told Haaretz.

The lawsuit, which also includes crimes against humanity, was filed in Santiago on Monday and was joined by a number of Chilean lawmakers from left, right and centrist parties.

The applicants are six landowners from the Beit Jala in the West Bank, whose lands will be separated from the village as a result of the barrier's construction.

Five of them are Chilean nationals residing in the country and the sixth is a Palestinian that lives in Beit Jala.

The suit was filed against former chief Judge Asher Grunis, and Judges Neal Hendel and Uzi Vogelman. The three presided over a petition lodged by Beit Jala residents and rejected an alternative route for the barrier fence.

On April 2, 2015, the court ruled that the alternative route failed to fulfill the wall's "security" role in the way the War Ministry's route did.

Chile is a signatory on the 2012 Rome Statute, and has since included the principle of universal jurisdiction in its constitution, giving the county's judiciary the authority to prosecute any person for international crimes, regardless of their nationality or where the crime took place.

The decision to prosecute judges was based on the precedent set by the Nuremberg trials, which permitted judges to be convicted for their role in cooperating with crimes against humanity and war crimes, a member of the legal team that prepared the suit told Haaretz.

Source: Haaretz: Edited by website team