Judge Fernando Andreu of Spain’s Audiencia Nacional court is investigating the assassination by Israel of Salah Shehadeh, a leader of Hamas, in 2002. The investigation has been described as “lacking the slightest degree of systematic rigor”, resting on an “opportunist interpretation” of the law and being based on  a “conceptual error”.

So described by whom? By Lieberman? By Netanyahu? Nope. The quotes are taken from the very same court’s official  attorneys in their appeal against Andreu’s decision to look into the killing of Shehadeh, an operation which led to 14 fatal civilian casualties. The unusually strong language employed by the attorneys arises from a context in which their recently given recommendation that the investigation not proceed was rejected by Andreu.

The attorneys base their appeal on “strict compliance  with national and international law, which recognizes the principle of subsidiarity in the exercise of universal jurisdiction”, a principle which gives priority to the jurisdiction of the state concerned, in this case Israel, and point out that the Shehadeh’s assassination has already been investigated at a number of different levels in Israel - all of them meeting “the basic requirements that can be demanded from a state acting in accordance with law” - and that the investigations have been reviewed by that nation’s supreme court.