UN: No names yet for Gaza flotilla investigation team

Shabtai Gold
July 7, 2010
Independent Online
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=123&art_id=nw20100707122416908C163116

Geneva - The United Nations on Wednesday denied Israeli media reports that it has finalized appointments to the international team that will investigate the recent killing of nine activists onboard a Gaza-bound aid ship by Israeli commandos.

UN officials in Geneva also denied reports in the Israeli press quoting unnamed sources as saying that Philippe Kirsch, the former president of the International Criminal Court, would head the team.

The president of the UN Human Rights Council, Thai diplomat Sihasak Phuangketkeow, has been tasked with recruiting researchers and investigators for the UN's Gaza probe.

'The president is still in process of appointing members,' Clare Kaplun, the spokeswoman for the council, told the German Press Agency dpa.

Eight pro-Palestinian Turkish activists and a US citizen of Turkish origin were killed when Israeli soldiers raided the flotilla as it tried to break Israel's embargo on the Gaza Strip in May by delivering humanitarian aid.

Israel placed tighter restrictions on the movement of goods and people into Gaza after the Islamist group Hamas took control of the territory in 2007.