An Israeli general wanted for alleged war crimes escaped arrest at Heathrow airport because British police feared an armed stand-off.

Major-General Doron Almog stayed on board the El Al plane for two hours after it landed in London in September 2005 after being tipped off that a warrant had been issued for his detention.

Leaked documents now show that officers refused to board the plane because they were worried about the possibility of a confrontation with the armed marshals who travel on flights operated by El Al, the Israeli national airline.

There were also concerns that General Almog, who has been accused of illegally ordering the destruction of 59 homes in the Gaza Strip in 2002, might have been travelling with armed personal security.

One of the documents – Summary of Decision Log relating to Doron Almog – shows that the police had planned to arrest the Israeli when he arrived at the Heathrow immigration desk. But when General Almog failed to get off the plane, officers decided against boarding because it “presented an exponential risk to the officers, especially with the lack of intelligence regarding personnel on the plane”.

Detective Superintendent John Mac-Brayne, a senior counter-terrorism officer who was in charge of the operation and more recently flew to Pakistan to investigate the death of Benazir Bhutto, said that it was also not clear at the time whether police had a legal right to board the plane.

The document, prepared for the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which investigated the operation, revealed that Mr MacBrayne “was informed that police did indeed board aircraft routinely but it was not clear if this could be done without the consent of the carrier”.

El Al “were refusing voluntary access to the plane”, and officers decided that they had insufficient time to obtain legal advice on whether they could forcibly board the aircraft before it took off.

General Almog, who had flown to the UK to visit Jewish communities in Manchester and the West Midlands, remained on the plane for the two hours that it was on the tarmac at Heathrow before flying back to Israel.

Daniel Machover, of the British solicitors Hickman and Rose, which represents General Almog’s alleged Palestinian victims, said: “We are astonished that the legal position wasn’t clear in the minds of the officers at the airport.”

Boarding planes is “not an infrequent activity on the part of the police” and “the point is that they should have known what the scope of their powers was”.

Chris Yates, an aviation security expert, said that British police had every authority to board an aircraft on UK soil. “If the police in this country feel that a crime has been committed or that they have to execute a warrant for someone’s arrest then they are quite within their rights to board the aircraft with or without the permission of the pilots,” he added.

Hickman and Rose also criticised the police for failing to maintain secrecy about the arrest warrant, with the result that General Almog was warned of it by the Israeli military attaché when he reached London.

However, the IPCC, which concluded its investigation last summer, said it had found no evidence that police were guilty of “improperly disclosing information” or that officers had breached the police code of conduct in failing to board the aircraft to execute the arrest warrant.

El Al declined to comment.

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