ICC drops "Mavi Marmara" case; IHH lies about it

Peace activists preparing to greet their guests

First came the lies:

Turkey's Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH) issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) finished its investigation into the Mavi Marmara case and concluded that Israel is guilty of "war crimes" for attacking a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza in May 2010.

Um, no. The prosecutor did not mount an investigation and did not conclude that Israel is guilty of anything, as we will see.

Now that we have that out of the way, Reuters reports the story this way:

International prosecutors believe Israeli soldiers may have committed war crimes during a raid that killed nine Turkish activists in 2010, but have decided the case is beyond their remit, according to court papers seen by Reuters.

The move by lawyers at the International Criminal Court is likely to enrage Ankara which accused its erstwhile ally Israel of mass murder after the commandos abseiled onto a flotilla challenging an Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"The information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes under the Court's jurisdiction have been committed in the context of interception and takeover of the Mavi Marmara by IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) soldiers on 31 May 2010," read the paper seen on Wednesday.

But the lawyers decided the crimes in question were not of sufficient gravity to fall under the court's jurisdiction, the papers added.

Prosecutors added they had reached these conclusions on the basis of publicly available information.

"Not having collected evidence itself, the Office’s analysis in this report must therefore not be considered to be the result of an investigation," the paper read.

Without seeing the actual paper, it appears that the prosecutors read some newspaper accounts of the incident, decided that in theory there is enough evidence based on biased and third-hand sources to go ahead to a trial, but did not do any kind of investigation. Their only decision was that the case is not appropriate for the ICC.

In other words, the IHH lost, big time, and they did what Islamists often do when they lose: they claimed victory. 

(h/t Bob K)