Humza Yousaf demands investigation over David Camerons threat to ICC

Former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf will write to the chair of the British parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee urging an investigation into former Foreign Secretary David Cameron, Middle East Eye can reveal. 

The development comes after MEE reported on Monday that on 23 April 2024, Cameron privately threatened to defund and withdraw from the International Criminal Court if it issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

Cameron, then foreign secretary in Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, made the threat in a heated phone call with Karim Khan, the British chief prosecutor of the court. At the time, Yousaf was the Scottish first minister.

MEE revealed details of the call based on information from a number of sources - including former staff in Khan’s office who are familiar with the conversation and have seen the minutes of the meeting.

"I absolutely believe there should be an investigation," Yousaf told MEE on Thursday.

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"I myself will be writing to the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Emily Thornberry, to ask that committee to investigate."

Yousaf added: "I've seen the comments also from Francesca Albanese, who's of course a respected legal authority on these matters, saying that there could well be a criminal offence that is also committed in this regard as well."

On Tuesday evening Albanese, the prominent legal scholar and UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, told MEE that if Cameron acted as MEE's sources said he did, the former foreign secretary and prime minister has committed a "criminal offence under the Rome Statute". 

The Rome Statute criminalises those who attempt to prevent war crimes from being prosecuted.

Article 70 awards the ICC jurisdiction over those responsible for "impeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform, or to perform improperly, his or her duties".

Cameron currently sits as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords, the upper house of the UK parliament.

Yousaf told MEE that if the report about Cameron is true, "we would need to also investigate whether or not Lord Cameron is fit to continue to sit in the House of Lords, or whether he's breached the members' code of conduct".

He said that "Lord Cameron has to be held to account. We are talking about a matter of the utmost seriousness here. We need to know whether a serving British foreign secretary at the time threatened to defund the International Criminal Court."

Yousaf said that "the British government really has to stand up for international law. We can't go around hectoring and lecturing the rest of the world about human rights and the importance of international law, if our very serving foreign secretary allegedly was threatening to defund the ICC - to sanction the International Criminal Court."

'Awful silence' in British media

Yousaf further criticised the mainstream British media for not reporting on the story.

"It betrays the awful silence that we've seen from too many in the British media establishment," he said.

"I would love the British media, in its broadest sense to not just cover what is happening kind of day to day, but examine the UK's complicity in a genocide that's taking place in front of our very eyes."

Yousaf, a member of the Scottish National Party, served as Scotland's first minister from March 2023 to May 2024. 

He strongly opposed the Conservative government's support for Israel's bombardment of Gaza and called for an arms embargo on Israel in February 2024.

Members of his wife's family were in Gaza when the war began in October 2023.

Yousaf's criticism of Cameron comes after numerous British MPs criticised the former prime minister. 

Approached by MEE for a response to the exchange with Cameron, Karim Khan said: “I have no comment to make at this time.”

Approached by MEE for a response to its report on the phone call, the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office declined to comment.

Cameron did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

middleeasteye.net