British atheist activists planning to have Pope Benedict XVI arrested during his UK visit

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, have hired human rights lawyers to prosecute Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Times Online reported.

In a new development, it emerged that a 1985 letter the Pope signed, when in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dealing with sex abuse cases, said that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys.

Barristers Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens are positive they can request the Britain's Crown Prosecution Service to file a criminal case against the Pope, start their own civil action against him or submit his case to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Pope Benedict will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, traveling to London, Glasgow and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian.

Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity to avoid detention, as his trip is categorised as a state visit, despite he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations. 

“This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence,” Dawkins said. 

“This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment," Hitchens said. 

Read more in Times Online...