An Istanbul court on Friday dropped a case against four top former Israeli commanders who were being tried in absentia over the 2010 deadly storming of a Turkish ship bound for Gaza, a lawyer said.
The court halted the case brought by victims of an Israeli raid on an aid flotilla that killed 10 people in 2010, a lawyer for the victims’ families said, following a deal in June to restore ties between Israel and Turkey.
Israel agreed to pay out $20 million to the families of those killed on the vessel, a crucial element in the restoration of ties.
An arrest warrant for the four was also withdrawn, Gulden Sonmez, a lawyer for the victims, wrote on Twitter after a closed door hearing in Istanbul.
Mustafa Ozbek, a spokesman for the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) charity which organized the bid in 2010 to break Israel’s Gaza blockade, confirmed to AFP that the case had been withdrawn.
Ten Turkish citizens lost their lives as a result of the raid that saw Israeli commandos storm the Mavi Marmara ship. But dropping the charges was a key pillar of a deal agreed between Israel and Turkey this June to normalize bilateral ties.
Prosecutors had been seeking life sentences for the alleged involvement of former Israeli military Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former navy chief Eliezer Marom, former military intelligence head Amos Yadlin and former air force intelligence chief Avishai Levy, who went on trial in absentia in 2012.
The decision had been expected after the prosecutor told the Istanbul court last week that the case against the Israelis should be dropped because of the agreement.
Israeli-Turkish relations broke down in 2010 when Turkish pro-Palestinian activists were killed by Israeli commandos enforcing a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The soldiers had raided a ship, the Mavi Marmara, leading a flotilla to the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.

Source: Arab News