CAIRO: Egyptian activists and MPs filed a complaint to Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud on Thursday, calling for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak upon entering Egypt. The group says the Israeli officials committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Israeli attack on the ‘Freedom Flotilla' last Monday, which left 9-19 activists of different nationalities dead. The complaint cites international laws and conventions regarding the protection of civilians, including the statute of the International Criminal Court, which allows countries to arrest war criminals and paves the way for their being tried at specialized international courts. Crimes against the aid flotilla are considered war crimes according to the Geneva Convention, says the complaint. Fifty-one activist and MPs signed the complaint including civil rights activist Ibrahim Yousri, Abdel-Halim Qandil, coordinator of the Kefaya movement for change, Hamdi Qandil, journalist and spokesman for the National Association for Change, and opposition and independent MPs Saad Aboud, Gamal Zahran, Hamdin Sabbahi. Muslim Brotherhood MPs Mohamed El-Beltagy and Hazem Farouk, who were on board of the freedom flotilla during the attack, also signed the complaint. Yousri told Daily News Egypt that this is the beginning of an Arab and international campaign to bring Israeli officials to international courts. He added that they are contacting activists in Arab and European countries to file similar complaints in their countries, in addition to bringing lawsuits to specialized international courts. "We want to trap Israeli officials according to international law and in the framework of an international campaign that aims at trying them as war criminals," he said. "I expect the international campaign to escalate legally and judicially in three or four months, to the point where no Israeli official will be able to leave Tel Aviv to avoid being arrested in any other country," he added.
