War crimes: kyiv could extradite Russians to the International Criminal Court
Ukraine could extradite Russian war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, if their trial cannot take place in Ukraine for legal reasons, the court’s prosecutor said on Thursday. . Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, is not a member state of the ICC, created in 2002 to try those accused of the world’s worst atrocities, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The ICC opened its own investigation into the war in Ukraine soon after Russia invaded, but said it was keen for Ukraine to bring suspects to justice itself if possible. Karim Khan, prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, did not say when the ICC would bring its first charges, saying he would wait until “the evidence is sufficient”. “We are moving forward, we are focused, but I will make announcements at the right time”did he declare.
Ukrainian justice has already sentenced ten people for crimes committed during the Russian invasion, said the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Andriy Kostin, during the press conference. Ukraine also plans to file war crimes charges for Russian strikes on kyiv and other cities this week, Kostin said. Romania, meanwhile, said it had joined the international investigative team to investigate war crimes in Ukraine, already made up of Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and of Slovakia, alongside the European judicial agency Eurojust and the ICC.