Herzog (R) spoke at Davos on Tuesday and held meetings on Wednesday morning but it was unclear if he was still in Switzerland [Halil Sagirkaya/Anadolu via Getty]
Swiss prosecutors said Wednesday they were examining several complaints against visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog, as reports suggested NGOs were accusing him of “incitement to genocide” in Gaza.
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) confirmed it had received “several criminal complaints” against Herzog, who was at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this week.
“The criminal complaints are now being examined in accordance with the usual procedure,” the OAG said in an email sent to AFP, adding that the office was in contact with Switzerland’s foreign ministry “to examine the question of the immunity of the person concerned”.
It provided no details on the specific complaints filed.
The Swiss Keystone-ATS news agency reported that one of the complaints came from an NGO called Legal Action Against Genocide.
The NGO was calling for Herzog to be prosecuted “for incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity”, the news agency said.
The complaint, it said, deemed he had played “an active role in the ideological justification of genocide and war crimes in Gaza, by erasing all distinction between the civilian population and combatants”.
Herzog spoke at Davos on Tuesday and held meetings on Wednesday morning but it was unclear if he was still in Switzerland.
Complaints were also filed against him when he attended the Davos meeting a year ago but the OAG refrained from opening an investigation that time, Keystone-ATS reported.
Israeli officials have repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes and genocide, accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields. The International Criminal Court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Israel’s 15-month offensive in Gaza killed over 47,000 people, most of them civilians, the territory’s health ministry says. The UN says these figures are reliable, and the death toll is believed to be significantly higher with bodies buried beneath the rubble.
