US president says Russian leader has clearly committed war crimes and move makes ‘a very strong point’
Joe Biden has welcomed the international criminal court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for the Russian president for war crimes in Ukraine.
The US president said Vladimir Putin had clearly committed war crimes and that the arrest warrant for the Russian leader made a “very strong point”.
Continue reading...Supporters of the invasion of Ukraine are portraying the court’s decision as a sign of western antagonism to Russia
The international criminal court’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin will probably be portrayed as a point of no return in Russia, where the Kremlin will spin the court’s decision as proof that the west is seeking nothing short of regime change.
While Putin has already been preparing his public for a long war, the arrest warrant will for the first time raise the concrete possibility that Russia’s leaders and other prominent supporters of the war could face justice at The Hague if they ever find themselves under arrest.
Continue reading...What we know about the children behind the indictment of Vladimir Putin and his children’s commissioner for abduction
• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates
The international criminal court in The Hague has indicted the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children.
This means there is now an international arrest warrant out for Putin, a reflection of the speed with which the international legal community has pursued allegations of war crimes during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...International criminal court prosecutor is said to be preparing to formally open two war crimes cases
Moscow has said it does not recognise the jurisdiction of the international criminal court in The Hague, after reports that the court is expected to seek its first arrest warrants against Russian individuals over the war in Ukraine.
“We do not recognise this court; we do not recognise its jurisdiction,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists in Moscow on Tuesday morning.
Continue reading...Two war crimes cases to be opened over abduction of Ukrainian children and targeting of civilian infrastructure
The prosecutor at the international criminal court will formally open two war crimes cases and issue arrest warrants for several Russians deemed responsible for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children and the targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, according to reports on Monday.
The New York Times and Reuters news agency reported that the prosecutor, Karim Khan, would ask pre-trial judges to approve arrest warrants on the basis of evidence collected so far. If successful, it would be the first time ICC warrants have been issued in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Defence department reportedly unwilling to share intelligence over fears precedent could be set against US soldiers
The Pentagon has been accused of blocking the sharing of US intelligence with the international criminal court (ICC) about Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
The Biden White House and state department have been a proponent of cooperation with the Hague-based ICC, as a means of holding Russian forces accountable for widespread war crimes, but the defence department is firmly opposed on the grounds that the precedent could eventually be turned against US soldiers.
Continue reading...Graphic clip shows detained combatant standing in a shallow trench before being apparently shot
Ukraine has urged the international criminal court to investigate footage circulating on social media that appeared to show Russian fighters killing a Ukrainian prisoner of war.
In the graphic clip that first circulated on Telegram, a detained combatant is seen standing in a shallow trench and smoking a cigarette. The soldier says “Glory to Ukraine” and is then apparently shot with automatic weapons.
Continue reading...Crusading pathologist Raquel Fortun finds evidence of multiple murder at the direction of ‘a madman’ in the exhumed remains of young Filipinos
It was in an old university stockroom, with wooden tables salvaged from a junkyard, that Raquel Fortun began to investigate the merciless crackdown launched under the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.
Fortun, one of only two forensic pathologists in the country, has now spent more than 18 months examining the exhumed remains of dozens of victims of the so-called “war on drugs”, revealing serious irregularities in how their postmortems were performed – including multiple death certificates that wrongly attributed fatalities to natural causes.
Continue reading...Pressure grows on Putin as politicians and lawyers point to principles that led to Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals
Demands for a special tribunal to investigate Russia for a “crime of aggression” against Ukraine have been backed by senior UK politicians from across the political divide in a move to show Vladimir Putin and his generals that they will be held to account.
In a joint statement shared with the Observer, figures including the Labour leader Keir Starmer, the former Nato secretary general George Robertson, the former foreign secretary David Owen, and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith say the tribunal should be set up to look into the “manifestly illegal war” on the same principles that guided the allies when they met in 1941 to lay the groundwork for the Nuremberg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders.
Continue reading...Network files formal request against Israel over shooting of Palestinian-American journalist in West Bank
Al Jazeera television network has filed a formal request to the international criminal court against Israeli forces over the killing of the veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Abu Akleh was shot in the head during an Israeli raid in a refugee camp on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in May, while wearing a helmet and flak jacket that clearly indicated she was a member of the press. Several investigations by human rights organisations, as well as international news outlets and the UN, have concluded that Abu Akleh, 51, was shot by an Israeli soldier. Her colleague Ali al-Samoudi survived after being shot in the shoulder.
Continue reading...Phénéas Munyarugarama is second person wanted for their involvement in 1994 mass killings to die
One of the last five fugitives wanted for his role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Phénéas Munyarugarama, died in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002, UN prosecutors have announced.
Munyarugarama, a local army commander, “died of natural causes” and was buried in Kankwala, in the eastern DRC, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) announced in The Hague.
Continue reading...Prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova says ‘more than 8,000 cases’ of suspected war crimes identified
Ukraine’s prosecutor general has named 10 Russian soldiers allegedly involved in human rights abuses during the month-long occupation of Bucha.
Iryna Venediktova also told German TV that that Ukranian investigators had identified “more than 8,000 cases” of suspected war crimes since Russia’s invasion, which included accusations of “killing civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, torture” and “sexual crimes”.
Continue reading...Death toll likely to rise, say witnesses to indiscriminate attacks on Kreinik and El Geneina by Sudan’s notorious Rapid Support Forces
At least 200 people are now known to have died in West Darfur in the latest attack on civilians and local forces blamed on Janjaweed militia.
Darfur, the semi-arid western region of Sudan where a vicious civil war erupted in 2003, has seen a new outbreak of fighting over the past few months as rival groups clash over water and grazing land, shortages of which are being exacerbated by the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman is accused of 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity
A former militia leader in Sudan has denied committing war crimes and crimes against humanity as his landmark hearing opened at the international criminal court.
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman is accused of leading thousands of pro-government fighters on a systematic campaign of murder, rape and torture during the height of violence in the Darfur region of Sudan between 2003 and 2004.
Continue reading...International criminal court inquiry has been expedited by unprecedented number of countries backing move
A war crimes investigation has been launched into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after an unprecedented number of countries backed the move and Boris Johnson called the military intervention “abhorrent”.
Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the international criminal court (ICC), said he would begin work “as rapidly as possible” to look for possible crimes against humanity or genocide committed in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Even if Russian leader were charged, he would have to be arrested in a state that accepts the court’s jurisdiction
The prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague announced this week that he would launch an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine. How likely are Putin or other Russian political or military leaders to be brought to justice and what are the obstacles that must be overcome for that to happen?
Continue reading...Attempt to target Iranian and Syrian officials includes evidence from civilians forced to flee to Jordan
A groundbreaking attempt to make Iranian and Syrian military officials answerable for war crimes they may have committed in Syria is being launched, as part of an effort to have the cases brought before the international criminal court.
The request includes evidence of Syrian victims forced to flee into Jordan due to attacks and intimidation by the Syrian government and Iran-backed militia groups. It is being brought by the US-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center in conjunction with Haydee Dijkstal, a UK barrister.
Continue reading...A congressional investigation has laid bare the disregard with which the Brazilian president treated the lives of his compatriots
To describe the Brazilian senate’s 1,180 page report on Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the Covid pandemic as damning would be inadequate. Formally approved on Tuesday by a cross-party committee, the report chronicles not just bad leadership but wilful, lethal acts of folly, carried out by a Donald Trump mini-me who sacrificed lives on the altar of his own unfounded presumptions. It recommends that President Bolsonaro face criminal indictments for a catalogue of actions and omissions that could have led to as many as 300,000 avoidable deaths.
As Mr Bolsonaro presided over a death toll which is now the second-highest in the world (after the United States), the report finds he deliberately sent his citizens over the top without defences in the battle against Covid. Other countries scrambled to buy up vaccines when they became available; the president delayed for half a year while ruthlessly pursuing a herd immunity strategy. He himself claims not to have yet been vaccinated. When Brazilians suffered a record rise in deaths during a 24-hour period last March, their president told them to “stop whining”. The wearing of masks and social distancing was treated by Mr Bolsonaro as a kind of weakness in the face of what he described as a “little flu”, and he trolled regional governments’ attempts to introduce Covid restrictions. By presidential decree he tried to keep businesses such as gyms and spas open at the height of the pandemic. Emulating his political hero in Washington, Mr Bolsonaro has disseminated misinformation online and recommended quack treatments for the virus, in the teeth of all scientific evidence. This week, Facebook and YouTube removed a video by him which falsely linked vaccines to the Aids virus. President Bolsonaro’s guiding philosophy during the pandemic is best summed up by the comment he made to journalists a year ago: “All of us are going to die one day … There is no point in escaping from that, in escaping from reality. We have to stop being a country of sissies.”
Continue reading...Sara Duterte ahead in the polls despite refusing to commit to presidential race
It was a decade ago, before her father had become Philippine president, that Sara Duterte attracted national attention. A local sheriff had ignored orders issued by her, the mayor of Davao City, to delay the demolition of a shantytown. She arrived at the scene furious and punched him, not once, but four times in the head, in front of reporters.
Duterte, 43, a motorbike lover and tough talker, has a combative image that echoes that of her 76-year-old father, the populist president Rodrigo Duterte. It is widely believed that, as he nears the end of his six-year term limit, she will follow in his footsteps to Manila’s Malacañang Palace.
Continue reading...Move by international body set up to implement post-war peace deal follows attempts to downplay 1995 Srebrenica massacre
The top international official in Bosnia has outlawed denial of genocide in the Balkan country to counter attempts by Bosnia’s Serbs to deny the scope of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Europe’s only post-second world war genocide.
Valentin Inzko, the outgoing head of Bosnia’s Office of the High Representative, or OHR, introduced the changes to the country’s criminal code on Friday, bringing in prison sentences of up to five years for genocide denial and for the glorification of war criminals, including naming of streets or public institutions after them.
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