Friedrich Merz, who is expected to be Germany’s next chancellor, says he would make sure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can visit Germany despite an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Speaking to reporters on Monday, a day after his conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party won national elections, Merz said he told Netanyahu in a congratulatory phone call that the pair should meet after a new German government is formed.
Visiting was never the problem… going back home was.
You’d think that if you had to jump through that many hoops to invite someone to your country, mayyyybe a few alarm bells should ring in your head. But no, Merz is an expert at mental gymnastics and will gladly invite a war criminal before he considers rethinking his position.
What a load of shit. With Mongolia not arresting Putin you could argue that they’re stuck between Russia and China and have no choice but to at least tolerate their neighbor. But I see no justification for not arresting Netanyahu in Germany.
Is this something within his power to do, isn’t that up to the courts?
That’s a very good question and I guess the answer is ask the constitutional court. Quoth §20 GVG:
German jurisdiction also shall not apply to representatives of other states and persons accompanying them who are staying in the territory of application of this Act at the official invitation of the Federal Republic of Germany.
This is international jurisdiction, though, also is it even legally possible to extend an official invitation to a known fugitive.
It gets even more complicated because even if the federation thinks that it should not apply an international warrant, that doesn’t mean that the states think they shouldn’t.
And then there’s the whole political question, stances on the violence aside “let’s just not arrest people when the ICC wants to put them to trial” is not a thing that’s exactly popular among law-and-order-and-procedures CDU people. Their preference would be, if anything, to not have to think about the issue, that is, not have Netanyahu visit.
New conservative Minister bowing to fascism, that’s not alarming in any way
He did that already before he was elected… that guy is straight up disgusting
But did we check his hands to see if fingers were crossed?
