The first war crimes arrest requests in Ukraine concern the crime of child abduction. This is confirmed by some sources of the International Criminal Court which, after a year-long investigation, intends to officially open two war crimes trials. According to what is known so far, prosecutor Karim Khan is preparing to submit the arrest warrants, which will have to be reviewed and possibly approved by court judges.
The proceedings concern the kidnapping of Ukrainian children and young people by Russia and their transport to Russian re-education camps, as well as the targeted attack on civilian infrastructure. Officials in The Hague declined to comment officially on the news. “We do not discuss details of ongoing investigations publicly,” it said. The New York Times explained that it is not clear at this time who the court intends to indict for the various crimes at the military and political levels.
The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is about to present the first indictments of very serious war crimes and crimes against humanity attributable to the responsibility of high-ranking officers of the Russian Federation in the framework of the aggressive war in the territories of Ukraine has accepted the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court» , confirmed from New York David Donat Cattin of “Parlamentarians for global action” (PGA), the international organizing partner of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine in 2022. The PGA network supported this through its headquarters in The Hague Civil Liberties Center project “A Court for Putin”.
Some moments of prosecutor Khan’s last mission in Ukraine – Icc Cpi
Prosecutor Khan’s investigations – explains Donat Cattin – should also lead to the indictment of the Russian “strategists” who planned and ordered the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the purpose of which is only to damage the armed morale of civilians, protected by international law, during conflicts
However, the chances of a trial being celebrated are very slim. The Hague court cannot examine cases investigated by the public prosecutor’s office in the absence of the suspects. And Russia, which like the United States does not recognize the International Criminal Court, is unlikely to extradite the wanted persons. The Kremlin has denied the war crimes allegations, but international and Ukrainian investigators have gathered evidence they describe as “overwhelming” relating to atrocities committed in Ukraine not episodically, but according to a precise plan by Moscow authorities.
“Such cases could fall under the war crime of forced removal and the crime against humanity of deportation – he clarifies David Donat Cattin -, as well as in enslavement, since children subjected to “Russification” programs cannot in any way consent to those they control. The criminal court is to examine the related allegations soon in the antechamber.