Arrest fear keeps Israeli minister from UK seminar

Occupied Jerusalem: An Israeli government minister has refused to visit Britain because he fears arrest for alleged war crimes following a controversial air strike in 2002 that killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Avi Dichter, the public security minister, was invited to give the keynote speech at a counter-terrorism seminar at King's College in London in January before it was discovered he faced arrest in Britain following legal action taken by human rights campaigners.

Despite numerous Israeli appeals from as high up as Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, the British Government believes its hands are tied by a system that includes procedures for punishing war criminals.

Mati Gill, Dichter's chief of staff, said that after the King's College invitation was received he wrote to the foreign and justice ministries.

"Knowing there had been legal complications with some former senior Israeli officials, we checked it out,'"

"They gave us an answer after a week and said that he would not necessarily get immunity. So it will not be possible to go on the trip."

This represented a significant change in Israeli government thinking as previously the ban on travel to Britain had only applied to former Israeli officials who were believed to lose immunity when they gave up their official jobs.

The bilateral legal crisis has its roots in a Israeli air force attack on the house of Salah Shehade, the head of Hamas's military wing, in 2002.