GENEVA, July 24 (AFP) - The UN Human Rights Council has named a panel of experts to investigate whether Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla breached international law and urged the Jewish state to cooperate.
Briton Desmond de Silva, Malaysian Mary Shanthi Dairiam and Karl Hudson-Phillips from Trinidad and Tobago would probe the events surrounding the May 31 raid in which nine Turkish activists were killed, the council announced.
"This is not about finger pointing, it's about establishing the facts of what took place because the incident was humanitarian tragedy and it's in the interests of everyone," said council president Sihasak Phuangketkeow.
"So I'm hoping and I'm urging all the parties concerned to render their full cooperation, because it is in their interests and it's in the interests of the international community as a whole."
Israel has consistently rejected calls for an international independent investigation into the raid by its commandos and instead launched its own military probe and set up a separate panel to examine the legality of the raid.
Last week the military investigation admitted that mistakes were made at a "relatively senior" level.
The Israeli panel, led by retired Supreme Court judge Yaacov Tirkel, will hear testimony from all of the top political and military decision makers involved in planning the raid. |
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