ISTANBUL, September 6, 2011 (WAFA) – Turkish lawyers began legal proceedings against Israeli soldier involved in killing nine Turkish citizens on board of the Mavi Marmara ship last year, according to a press release issued Tuesday.
Ramazan Ariturk, speaking on behalf of the lawyers representing the families of the Mavi Marmara victims, said that they have the identity information of some of the Israeli soldiers who carried out the May 31, 2010 attack on the ship while sailing to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.
“We have been filing criminal complaints against them in local and international courts including the International Criminal Court (ICC) and we will exert utmost effort to ensure that they receive the necessary punishment,” he said.
The attorneys had also filed criminal complaints last October at the ICC against Israeli officials “for the war crimes and crimes against humanity they committed,” he said.
Stating that “we have felt the need to make this statement following the leakage of the UN Palmer Report on the flotilla attack and the following developments,” the Mavi Marmara lawyers lashed out at the so-called Palmer committee for taking Israel’s side in the investigation.
“As everyone knows, the mission and ultimate goal of the Palmer Commission assigned by the UN Secretary General is to ‘positively influence the relations between Turkey and Israel and the general situation in the Middle East.’ In this regard, Palmer report is significantly different from the UN Human Rights Council’s report on the Mavi Marmara incident and it is politically-motivated. The goal of the commission was to prepare a report which would help Turkey and Israel reconcile,” said the lawyers in their statement.
“For the commission to release its report, it was necessary for all its four members to reach a consensus on the report and approve of it,” they said. “If no consensus is reached among the members of the commission, the report can never become an official report, it becomes null and void. In this respect, since the Palmer report has been rejected by Turkey, it has no legal validity, meaning that it is null and void.”
The statement went on to say: “In addition, we would like to remind everyone once again that as the lawyers of the Mavi Marmara victims, we conveyed our reservations about the impartiality of Alvaro Uribe, a member of the commission, to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Uribe is very well known for his pro-Israeli stance. In this regard, his impartiality and independence is highly controversial.
“Uribe received the Light Unto the Nations Award on May 4, 2007 given by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), one of the strongest Jewish lobbying institutions in the United States. The AJC president introduced Uribe as a good friend of Israel and the Jewish community while he was presenting the award to Uribe. Moreover, an investigation was launched by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) against Uribe due to the mass crimes he committed while serving as the Colombian president and the investigation is still in progress.”
M.A.
