Sunday, August 5, 2007

U.K. may seek extradition over British cameraman's Gaza death


"Britain may seek the extradition of Israel Defense Forces troops in the shooting death of a British television cameraman in May 2003 in the southern Gaza Strip unless Attorney General Menachem Mazuz reverses his position and carries out a criminal investigation against those suspected of involvement.

In a letter to the family of James Miller, a 34-year-old photojournalist shot and killed in Rafah, Lord Peter Goldsmith, Britain's attorney general, says he wrote Mazouz on June 26 and gave him six weeks to respond. The deadline is on Tuesday.

According to Goldsmith, after an inquest by a coroner, Dr. Andrew Scott Reid, Miller had been unlawfully killed by troops of the Israel Defense Forces. "Dr. Scott Reid wrote to me and invited me to consider instituting criminal proceedings in the United Kingdom against... members of the Israeli Defence Forces... for an offence of willful killing contrary to section I of the Geneva Conventions Act 1957."

While Goldsmith's letter does not explicitly discuss a possible request for an extradition, British law requires that any suspects be in British custody for charges to be brought up against them. Israel and Britain have an extradition treaty, and a refusal to extradite military personnel may result in a crisis between the two countries......"

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