Dania' and Anna's struggle to uncover British complicity in crime
In November 2016, “only weeks after the Great Hall attack, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary at the time, had urged Javid to continue selling arms, a Freedom of Information request would later show.
“During the Arab Spring of 2011, the government allowed the export of sniper rifles to North African and Middle Eastern states under the label of ‘crowd control goods’.
“In January 2024, newly appointed Foreign Secretary David Cameron was pressed before the Foreign Affairs Committee about whether he had been advised that Israel had breached international humanitarian law.
“Cameron, who noted repeatedly that he wasn’t a lawyer, eventually said: 'The short answer to that is no'.”
“On 26 March 2024, by when at least 32,414 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza and Israel had been accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, then-shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, asked Mitchell if he could give 'a simple yes or no answer' to one question: had the Foreign Office been advised that British weapons might be used to commit or facilitate war crimes?
“Mitchell replied that the UK had 'a robust arms export licensing regime' and that Israel's adherence to international humanitarian law was regularly reviewed and the government 'act in accordance with that'. He said that the Foreign Office would not publish any legal advice.”
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