Tarek William Saab, Attorney General of Venezuela, affirmed this Thursday that in the country “there is no need” for an investigation of the International Criminal Court (CPI). This in reference to the one that the high court began in November and for which it will open an office in Caracas.
He also assured that it will be shown that the national authorities carry out investigations in a timely manner.
Saab on the ICC investigation
“Honestly, there is no need for the International Criminal Court to investigate and we are going to prove it. We have been demonstrating it, we have been meeting, the memorandums have been signed, but in practice we are going to demonstrate it». This was said by the official in the presentation of his report and account before Parliament.
Saab emphasized: “In Venezuela, human rights violations are sanctioned, persecuted, judged without the need for a kind of legal colonization to protect what the Public Ministry is already doing here, fair and square and with all the sacrifices. and the justice system.
ICC office in Caracas
In this sense, he assured that the local system shows progress in terms of human rights and that they welcome and will cooperate with the office that the ICC will open in Venezuela. Something that the prosecutor of this body, Karim Khan, announced last week.
«Our team from the General Directorate for the Protection of Human Rights and the International Affairs Directorate had already had a first meeting with the team that will set up this office. We hope that it will help the Court Prosecutor to actively cooperate by accompanying the State in everything it wants to investigate, sanction and improve national procedures”, he indicated.
Saab assured that Venezuela “has collaborated from the beginning” with the investigation and that it has requested visits from the ICC, but that the country “received differential treatment.”
“We hope that transparency, complementarity, reciprocity and mutual respect will prevail in this new stage. As signed in the memorandum signed by Nicolás Maduro and the citizen prosecutor of the ICC », he said.
Karim Khan
Following an invitation from the government, prosecutor Karim Khan visited Venezuela last week. He announced that the organization he directs will open an office in the country, after an agreement with Maduro.
Khan appeared before the state channel Venezolana de Televisión to communicate the progress in relation to Venezuela, since he decided in November to open an investigation to assess whether crimes against humanity occurred in Venezuela in 2017.
“The parties have agreed, Mr. President, that my Prosecutor’s Office will be able to open an office here in Caracas. It is a very important step, very significant, it is not something for the gallery. It is something concrete that will allow me to fulfill the responsibilities in accordance with the Rome Statute and engage with the Venezuelan authorities here,” Khan said.