Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be arrested, in accordance with the country's obligations to the International Criminal Court, if he arrives in Poland. The statement was made by Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, UNN reports with reference to The Jerusalem Post.
Bartoszewski's comments were made in a Friday conversation with the Polish economic and legal newspaper Rzeczpospolita about preparations for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which is scheduled for January 27 this year.
Recall
In November, Netanyahu, along with former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, was indicted by the ICC for a series of crimes. States that have signed the Rome Statute are legally obliged to comply with ICC arrest warrants.
The court also issued a warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, despite the fact that the IDF announced that he was killed in an air strike in Gaza on July 13 this year. The judges said there were "reasonable grounds" that the three men were "criminally responsible" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas.
The ICC found that Netanyahu and Gallant committed the war crime of hunger strike as a method of warfare, as well as crimes against humanity in the form of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. Now Netanyahu and Gallant cannot travel to any of the 124 member states of the ICC, including most of Europe, most of Africa, and most of South America. At the same time, there is an assumption that some countries may ignore these orders. In total, the warrants were sent to all 193 UN member states.