A group of investigators from the International Criminal Court will soon go to Ukraine, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.
“Next week, 42 investigators will be sent to Ukraine.
This is the largest number of people my office has ever sent.
30 of them were seconded by the Dutch government, including forensic experts and analysts,” he said.
According to him, first of all, the facts should be investigated and the truth established.
“I don't care if justice is done by the International Criminal Court or by the authorities of the State.
The main thing is that the investigation be reliable, honest and independent, and the judge could make a decision based on it,” the prosecutor says.
At the same time, he noted that he was glad to work with the Ukrainian authorities, and recalled the cooperation agreement with the joint investigation team (JIT) created by Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine.
Thus, the ICC has access to the general documents of this structure.
“We, for our part, are not going to release all the documents we have, because we are obliged to monitor the actions of all parties to the conflict, whether they are regular troops on both sides or irregular armies,” Khan said.
He also welcomed the cooperation of the ICC and the European Union in the framework of the Ukrainian investigation.
In his opinion, "this moment will remain in history as a period when international law began to be seen not as an inconvenience, but as a way to protect society and its values, as well as peace and security."
International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan
Gettyimages.ru
Earlier, on April 11, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, after a meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU member states, said that the association intends to help the prosecutors of both the International Criminal Court and Ukraine in collecting evidence of war crimes attributed to Russia in order to bring it to justice.
“We will assist in documenting war crimes,” he said.
Suspicion of bias
At the same time, the ICC prosecutor does not consider the increased interest in Ukrainian events to be something unusual.
Karim Khan also dismissed suspicions of "double standards of international justice".
So, in response to the Le Monde interviewer's remark that the ICC is no longer so actively investigating crimes in the Palestinian territories, in particular in the Gaza Strip, he replied that prosecutors do not have full access to the scene of incidents.
Khan also stressed that he was “not embarrassed at all” by his decision to suspend the investigation of crimes committed by the US military and the CIA in Afghanistan.
According to him, the ICC continues to collect information and look at “what complementarity options exist” (we are talking about cases in which ICC funds complement the justice system of the state itself).
Recall that a few years ago, the United States reacted rather harshly to the study by the International Criminal Court of the actions of the US military in Afghanistan.
In addition, in Washington in 2002, a special law was adopted to protect the country's military personnel from prosecution by the ICC.
Karim Khan announced the start of an investigation into possible crimes in Ukraine on March 2.
According to him, in the course of a preliminary study of the situation, his office "found reasonable grounds to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court had been committed."
In addition, 39 member states of this organization have applied to the ICC with a request to start an investigation.
The investigators will focus on the events in the republic from November 21, 2013 to the present.
At the same time, Ukraine is not a member of the ICC, but previously filed an application, recognizing the jurisdiction of the court in relation to possible crimes.
In turn, the press secretary of the President of Russia, Dmitry Peskov, on March 1, in an interview with reporters, stated that Russia is not a member of the ICC.
"The guilty are appointed in advance"
Russia is questioning the ability of the International Criminal Court to conduct an objective investigation of possible crimes in Ukraine.
Thus, the head of the legal section of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN, Sergei Leonidchenko, at an informal meeting of members of the UN Security Council on the topic “Providing accountability for crimes committed in Ukraine”, noted the extraordinary interest in the investigation by the United States and Great Britain.
At the same time, as the diplomat recalled, both countries once did everything possible to protect their own military from the attention of the ICC by adopting appropriate legislation.
“The use of political pressure, financial leverage, and even the imposition of personal sanctions against the ICC prosecutor led to the desired result: the ICC deprioritized investigations into war crimes committed by the British and American military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In fact, this artsy term means banal inaction, he said on April 27.
“All this serves as an excellent illustration of both the “impartiality and objectivity” of the ICC, and the hypocrisy of the United States and Great Britain, which suddenly began to support the ICC, pouring into it millions in subsidies.
This approach turns justice into a farce: a paid court delivers paid verdicts.”
On Gostomel street, Ukraine
© Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images
In turn, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova at the end of April drew attention to the cooperation of the ICC and the joint investigation team under the auspices of Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine.
According to her, the decision of the prosecutor's office of the international court to interact with the JIT demonstrates that the ICC "does not even try to maintain at least a semblance of impartiality and objectivity and enthusiastically joins the process in which the perpetrators are clearly appointed in advance."
She recalled that when human rights activists from the DPR and LPR applied to the court, providing more than 3 thousand materials about crimes committed against the inhabitants of Donbass, there was no “clear reaction” to this from the ICC.
Unilateral approach
Experts interviewed by RT agree that it is not worth expecting objectivity from the International Criminal Court on events in Ukraine.
As Senator Konstantin Dolgov noted, the ICC is not distinguished by its interest in investigating real crimes, and in general, the instance has long been compromised by its one-sidedness and political bias.
“I think that this will turn into another anti-Russian PR campaign, because they ignore any evidence from the Russian Federation.
Although Moscow would welcome the participation of this international structure in the investigation of real crimes.
However, there is no hope that the ICC will be interested in something other than Ukrainian productions,” Dolgov said.
In turn, Dmitry Labin, professor of international law at Moscow State University, expressed the opinion that the ICC took up the Ukrainian events so actively not only for political reasons, but also to justify its existence.
“The ICC has a huge budget, and the result of its activities is extremely weak.
His practice is rather small, so it cannot be considered effective.
Therefore, they are now trying to justify their high salaries, creating the appearance of some kind of activity on any noticeable informational occasions, ”he explained.
The expert confirmed that there is no need to talk about the objectivity of the current investigation, because countries unfriendly to Russia play the first violin in it, and the Russian Federation itself does not participate in this process.
“To conduct an objective and unbiased investigation in an environment where there is no cooperation is difficult.
Jurisprudence is then effective when it objectively considers all the evidence presented, the points of view.
And when there is clearly no interaction with any of the parties, what is there to talk about?
Labin emphasized.
According to Konstantin Dolgov, Russia has no reason to fear any verdicts from the international court due to the fact that its jurisdiction does not apply to it.
Therefore, none of his research will have legal force for the Russian Federation, he noted.
“At the same time, if this court finds Russia guilty of something, this will inspire Ukrainian nationalists and convince them of their impunity.
After all, now they are receiving comprehensive support from the West, which they perceive as an indulgence.
In addition, if the ICC, which the United States has now so actively taken to help, makes a one-sided decision, this will indicate the final degradation of the international legal system, ”concluded Dolgov.