Ehud Barak was yesterday saved from arrest after the Foreign Office upgraded his visit from private to ‘special status’ – giving him diplomatic immunity from charges of war crimes. 

He was represented by Pinochet’s attorney Clare Montgomery QC, who previously acted for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to fend off a request for his extradition to Spain in 1998. 

Judge Daphne Wickham took nearly eight hours to reach a decision on the case – noting the allegations of war crimes were well documented and “serious.” 

Over a hundred people protested outside the Labour Party conference to express their disgust at the presence of Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, at the Labour Friends of Israel reception last night. As Defence Minister he was responsible for launching Israel’s attack on Gaza in December 2008/January 2009, in which Israel committed war crimes against the population of Gaza. 

MPs Martin Linton and Jeremy Corbyn addressed the protest, called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Labour Friends of Palestine and supported by the British Muslim Initiative, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Friends of Al-Aqsa and J-BIG. 

Betty Hunter, General Secretary of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: 

‘The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has once again let down the Palestinians by allowing Ehud Barak escape responsibility for his war crimes by providing a letter to the judge that gave him a ’special status’. 

‘Given that on the same day as the judge considered this issue, Justice Goldstone was moving his report to the UN, which calls for legal action on Israel’s war crimes that left over 1400 Palestinians dead and thousands more maimed, this is a shocking failure of duty.’

Source: The Palestine Solidarity Campaign