Bolton backs push to charge Iran's leader on Israel hatred

Bolton backs push to charge Iran's leader on Israel hatred

Robert Tait, Tehran
December 14, 2006

THE outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, is backing a call for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be charged with inciting genocide over speeches calling for the destruction of Israel.

Mr Bolton will appear today among a panel of diplomats and lawyers calling for Mr Ahmadinejad to be prosecuted.

The panel has been convened by a Jewish umbrella group in the US, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations.

The call for legal action came as Mr Ahmadinejad repeated his onslaught against Israel at an international gathering of Holocaust deniers in Tehran.

The President, who has dismissed the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis as a myth, told up to 70 visiting speakers that the Israeli state would soon be wiped out. "Thanks to people's wishes and God's will, the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want," he said. "Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out."

He was praised by several participants for his "bravery and democratic actions" according to a source who was present.

The US and Britain led a chorus of Western disgust at the conference, which the White House labelled an "affront to the entire civilised world".

British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the meeting as "shocking beyond belief". "What further evidence do you need to have that this regime is extreme?" he said.

Mr Blair singled out the decision to invite David Duke, a former leading Ku Klux Klan member, as proof of Iran's extremism. Mr Duke praised the event as "a tremendous step forward" and said Mr Ahmadinejad said "sensible things".

Mr Bolton will be joined at the launch of the legal action against Mr Ahmadinejad by a Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, and the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold, together with experts from the US, Canada and Israel.

A suit will be lodged with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which will decide whether to hear the action.

The panel said the Iranian President was guilty of inciting genocide "by making numerous threats against the US, calling for the destruction of Israel and instigating discrimination against Christians and Jews". His words violated a 1948 UN genocide convention, to which Iran is a signatory, they said.

GUARDIAN, AGENCIES