No fewer than 16 former heads of state, high-ranking ministers, and security experts have reached out to the newly-appointed chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Karim Khan, and warned him that an investigation against Israel would be part of international efforts to delegitimize Israel and would make the ICC into a political entity, hurting its own standing.
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Signatories to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon that was initiated by the Friends of Israel Initiative and sent to Khan on Friday include former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper; former Australian Prime Minister John Howard; former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar; former president of Uruguay Luis Alberto Lacalle; former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.
Khan is due to take over from current ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in approximately two months.
The letter signed by the former leaders tells Khan that "we came together out of concern for the unprecedented campaign of delegitimization against Israel waged by the enemies of the Jewish State and supported by numerous international institutions."
In the letter, the former national leaders explain at length that Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, not a member of the ICC, and therefore the court has neither reason nor justification to try Israeli citizens.
"This view is strongly supported by the government of the United States of America, as well as the governments of Rome Statute state-parties Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Uganda, and leading international law scholars," it states.
The leaders point out that the ICC has mandate to investigate the "gravest crimes" as a court of last resort when national jurisdictions cannot or will not do so – a situation that does not apply to Israel, which it says has a "long-established and internationally respected legal system with a track record of investigating such crimes."
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