Iran demands war crimes tribunal against Israeli leaders (Roundup)

Mar 4, 2009, 8:37 GMT

   Tehran - Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday demanded an international war crimes tribunal be held against Israeli leaders who ordered military operations in the Gaza Strip in December and January.

   'The first step is breaking the immunity of this criminal regime and holding a war crimes tribunal against its leaders over the crimes and massacre in Gaza,' Khamenei said at the inauguration ceremony of a Tehran conference on the Palestinian territories.

   The demand by Khamenei, who in line with the Iranian constitution has the final say on all state affairs, was sent by the Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry as an official letter to the United Nations.

   President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad echoed Khamenei's demands for a war crimes tribunal for Israel, which Tehran does not recognize as a sovereign state, supporting instead Gaza's ruling Islamist militant group Hamas.

   'We need a united front against the Zionist regime [Israel] and should seriously follow up the condemnation of the criminals in a war crimes tribunal,' Ahmadinejad said in a speech at the same conference.

   In recent years, Ahmadinejad has caused international uproars by calling for the elimination of Israel from the map of the Middle East, relocating Israel's Jews to Europe or America and doubting the historic dimensions of the massacre of Jews during World War II, calling the Holocaust a 'fairy tale.'

   'The Zionist regime is on the verge of collapse,' Ahmadinejad claimed. '... The mission of this regime is constant threat, crime and domination over the region.'

   Ahmadinejad also called on Israel's supporters in the West to revise their stance and agree to a referendum by all Palestinians, including the more than 5 million refugees, as the only option to determine the political future of the territories in a fair way.

   The two-day conference was attended by officials from Islamic and non-Islamic countries aimed at supporting the Palestinians and rebuilding the war-shattered Gaza Strip. It was held a few days after a donor conference in Egypt, which Tehran termed as hypocritical because it was held by countries that supported Israel's 'crimes' and in a country that refused to open its borders to the people of Gaza during the violence.

   Khamenei also criticized the United Nations for its silence over the Gaza attacks and some Arab states for not having supported the Palestinians in the conflict.

   'The only way to settle the Palestinian problem is continued resistance [against Israel],' the ayatollah added.

   The Iranian prosecutor general's office earlier this week said it had asked Interpol to issue arrest warrants for 34 top Israeli political officials and 114 military commanders, including outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, on charges of war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

   Interpol denied having received any such request from Iran or any of its 187 member countries.