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Swiss foreign minister accused of complicity in Gaza war crimes

Gaza: 25 lawyers denounce Ignazio Cassis before the ICC
Gaza: 25 lawyers denounce Ignazio Cassis before the ICC Keystone-SDA

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has been denounced to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by 25 Swiss lawyers for complicity in crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. He is accused of complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

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An investigation must be launched against the Cassis, the Swiss lawyers told a press conference in Bern on Tuesday. In their view, Switzerland is violating the Geneva Conventions and failing to respect international humanitarian law.

Cassis should have taken all the measures at his disposal to prevent the commission of such crimes by Israel and, at the very least, not to encourage them in any way whatsoever, which he has failed to do, they said.

+ ICRC urges world to address ‘dramatic’ Gaza situation

In particular, the lawyers criticised the fact that the Swiss and Israeli defence ministers signed a military cooperation agreement in 2013. “Since then, Switzerland has been buying and selling arms and dual-use goods to Israel,” the lawyers said.

Adapted from French by AI/ts

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