British police summon Tzipi Livni for war crimes investigation

British police summoned Israel’s former Justice Minister MK Tzipi Livni to question her over alleged war crimes last week.

Livni received a letter from the police on Thursday but the summons was cancelled after talks between Israel and the UK, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported.

The newspaper said Scotland Yard’s War Crimes unit wanted to question Livni, a Zionist Union Knesset member, on suspicion of involvement in war crimes during “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza in 2008, when she was foreign minister, vice prime minister and a member of the diplomatic-security cabinet.

Livni was in the UK to participate in a conference organised by Haaretz newspaper and the British Jewish community.

The summons was “on a voluntary basis” and by consent, a senior Israeli official quoted by Haaretz said.

In 2011, UK law was changed to make it more difficult to obtain arrest warrants for Israeli public figures visiting in an official capacity.