Did Israeli interference block justice in Spain?

Palestinians carry posters showing the 10 passengers killed by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara during a rally at Gaza City’s seaport in May 2014.
Ashraf AmraAPA images

Charlotte Silver-19 February 2016

A Spanish court has ordered three citizens to pay the legal fees for their recent appeal in a case against Israeli officials who ordered an attack on a fleet of ships attempting to break the siege on Gaza.

Laura Arau, David Segarra and Manuel Espinar were on board the Mavi Marmara when it was raided by Israeli commandos in international waters in May 2010.

Arau, a filmmaker, told The Electronic Intifada she experienced the attack as if she was in a war movie. “By the end of the attack, the floor of the boat was red from blood,” she said.

The three were among the hundreds of activists who participated in the international flotilla of six boats, who were detained in international waters, taken to Israel against their will and interrogated before being expelled.

It was on board the Mavi Marmara, the largest ship in the flotilla, that Israeli forces killed nine people. 

A 10th victim died from his injuries in May 2014.

Disturbing precedence

“They don’t respect the victims of war crimes by imposing the costs,” Gonzalo Boyé, the lawyer representing the three litigants, told The Electronic Intifada.

Boyé said this is the first time such costs have been ordered on plaintiffs in a suit involving universal jurisdiction over war crimes, a decision that sets a disturbing precedent for future litigation.

The United Nations Human Rights Council found that Israel’s attack on the civilian ships in 2010 “constituted grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law.”

In July 2010 the three Spanish citizens sued seven Israeli politicians and military officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under Spain’s universal jurisdiction law, which formerly allowed the national courts to prosecute crimes of global significance that took place outside the country’s borders.                                                  

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