Trinity College Cambridge issued a legal notice regarding its investment companies linked to Israeli arms

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has issued Trinity College Cambridge with a legal notice regarding the college’s financial links to Israeli arms companies. 

According to the ICJP, the notice indicates “that officers, directors and shareholders at the college may be individually criminally liable if they maintain their investments in arms companies that are potentially complicit in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity”. 

This follows news that Trinity has invested £61,735 in Israel’s largest arms supplier, Elbit Systems. 

Elbit reportedly supplies up to 85% of Israel’s drones and land-based military equipment. The company’s president and CEO, Bezhalel Machlis, has publicly said “Elbit Systems has ramped up its production in support of the Israel MOD and Israel’s security forces.”

This investment comes alongside investments of £2.5m in Caterpillar, a heavy equipment company that has sold bulldozers to the Israeli Army, according to an FOI investigation conducted by The Middle East Eye.

According to the ICJP, the letter issued to Trinity “sets out the legal case regarding potential complicity in war crimes and the crime of genocide, drawing attention to the Rome Statute, the Genocide Convention and the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures on plausible genocide in Gaza”.

The letter calls upon Trinity to declare whether they will suspend such investment in order to avoid “criminal liability”. The college has been given until the 12th March to respond to the notice.

The ICJP describes itself as “an independent organisation of lawyers, politicians and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law”.

The organisation has been lobbying politicians and organisations it deems complicit in Israeli war crimes. It has issued a notice “of intention to prosecute any UK politicians that are aiding and abetting war crimes in Gaza.” 

Trinity College has been contacted for comment.