Argentina asks ICC to issue arrest warrants against Maduro and other senior officials

Argentina on Friday urged International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan to request that the court’s Preliminary Trial Chamber issue arrest warrants against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and other senior officials in his government.

For the Argentine government, which will submit a note to the ICC Prosecutor on Monday, the evidence gathered during the course of the investigation and the events that occurred after the presidential elections on July 28 “are sufficient elements to consider the merit of issuing the aforementioned arrest warrants.”

Argentina is the first State to formally request the ICC to issue arrest warrants against Maduro and senior officials for allegedly committing crimes against humanity.

Earlier in the day, the Uruguayan government asked Khan to investigate whether the events in Venezuela constitute crimes under his jurisdiction and, if so, to take urgent measures to ensure respect for and safeguard threatened human rights.

In a note sent to Khan, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Omar Paganini presented “complementary and objective” information to incorporate the investigation that the ICC has been conducting since 2018 into the possible commission of crimes against humanity in Venezuela, thus joining the complaint filed by several countries in the region.

“Given that, in light of these elements, one or more crimes appear to have been committed in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that fall within the jurisdiction of the Court, I request that you investigate the alleged facts in order to determine whether it is appropriate to charge one or more specific persons with the commission of such crimes,” Paganini said in his note to prosecutor Khan.

The opposition, various human rights organizations and international bodies have warned that Venezuela is experiencing an escalation in repression and persecution of dissidents, following the questionable results of the elections that declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner and which the opposition considers fraudulent.

In February 2018, the ICC prosecutor opened a preliminary examination known as Case Venezuela I, related to the events that occurred in the country starting in April 2017, when massive anti-government protests were recorded and repressed by state security forces.

That same year, the governments of Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Canada, all States Parties to the Rome Statute, decided to file a complaint with the ICC to investigate possible crimes against humanity.

During the government of former President Alberto Fernández, Argentina withdrew from the joint complaint, but in July of this year, the government of Javier Milei announced that it had asked the ICC to rejoin the complaint.

In 2021, the ICC prosecutor announced its decision to open a formal investigation into Venezuela for alleged crimes against humanity and signed a memorandum of understanding with the State based on the principle of positive complementarity established in the Rome Statute.

The Maduro government has claimed that it is seeking to “instrumentalize” international criminal justice mechanisms for political purposes and maintains that the alleged crimes against humanity “have never occurred.”

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