Pope 'has no UK arrest immunity'

From The Guardian:

Pope 'has no UK arrest immunity'

Plans to have the Pope arrested when he visits the UK will succeed because he is not a head of state, a solicitor has said.

Atheist authors Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens proposed the action against the Pontiff for his handling of child abuse scandals in the Catholic church.

The writers' solicitor Mark Stephens said applications will be made to courts in the UK and the International Criminal Court for a warrant for Pope Benedict XVI's arrest.

His likely defence would be be that he is immune from prosecution during his visit to Britain in September, according to the lawyer.

Mr Stephens said: "The courts will examine the claim of immunity. I believe that an English court would reject it. If the Pope was here on a state visit, ordinarily a head of state would have sovereign immunity. What I believe is that because he's not a sovereign, not a head of state, he's not entitled to the defence."

He said that the Vatican was declared to be a state by Benito Mussolini, but this had no standing in international law.

The Pope faced criticism after it emerged that he signed a letter which delayed the punishment of a paedophile priest in the US for the "good of the universal church".

Original article

Yeah, we really still don't like Catholics over here...

Well, obviously he's gonna avoid coming to the UK now. But that doesn't change much. Dawkins and Hitchens have basically got him Checkmate'd - if he comes, he'll be arrested, and if he doesn't come it'll be seen as an admission of guilt.

I go between liking and hating Christopher Hitchens...

This strikes me as the same sort of ploy some groups were trying to pull with advocating for George W. Bush's or Dick Cheney's arrest when they visited a foreign country. But it always comes to naught for obvious reasons.

Mind you, can't decide who I dislike more, the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury who said the Irish Catholic Church had lost all credibility because of the scandals. I'm not Catholic, so I suppose it doesn't really affect me, but I can't see what business the Archbishop of Canterbury has in the affairs of a church that is neither of the same nationality or denomination as his own.

The whole thing's a mess. But what's arresting the Pope going to do? He's an old (albeit rather nasty) old man who has said and probably done some terrible things. But so have a lot of the priests involved.

Are the British actually allowed to arrest a German/Italian/whatever he is person anyway?

If he came here then Yes. Wouldn't go down well with the Rest Of the World though, would it?