The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and President Nicolas Maduro signed a cooperation agreement, “despite differences of opinion” on the subject.
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After a three-day visit to Venezuela, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) left Caracas, Wednesday, November 3rd, without leaving behind him or winners or vanquished. It is in the Venezuelan capital that Karim Khan has announced the opening of an investigation into the allegations of crimes committed in the country since 2017 or even before. “We respect his decision even if (…) we do not share it,” said Nicolas Maduro in his presence, at the signing ceremony of an agreement at the presidential palace. “Despite differences of opinion on this issue [the opening of an investigation], the parties remain determined to actively collaborate with each other”, stipulates the text, which precludes that “no suspect has been identified at this point “.
Caracas has thus committed, in writing, to cooperate with the Office of the Prosecutor by facilitating the investigations into its territory. But if the diet is so magnanimous, it also takes a victory. A year ago, the Attorney Fatou Bensouda, including Karim Khan took the succession in June, concluded that there was a “reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity for torture, rapes and sexual violence, severe deprivation of Freedom, imprisonment, persecutions for political reasons “would have been committed since April 2017,” by the civil authorities, the armed forces and certain individuals widely “.
For months, the Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, then attempted to prove that the national justice was investigating and could lead the trials on his soil. The ICC aims, in fact, to put an end to the impunity of the authors of mass crimes, and intervenes only in the last resort, if a State does not have the means or the desire to investigate and judge. But in May, Fatou Bensouda concluded that the judicial proceedings committed for the sole purpose “to subtract people” to the justice of the Hague.
“This Court is your yard”
In this last point, Karim Khan does, on the contrary, the bet of trust. According to the agreement signed Wednesday, he undertakes to support the international standards of the country’s judicial institutions, or even to refer the investigation so Caracas ended up proving the capacity of his own courts. “Venezuela won his right to peace, greeted Nicolas Maduro. If there was no justice, there would be no peace, and in Venezuela, there is a dynamic peace that is constructed There is a peace based on constitutional rights “. “This Court is your court,” said Karim Khan to his host, behind which held the flag of the ICC, whose existence is listed in the Constitution of Venezuela.
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