( Spanish) — The Preliminary Questions Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) authorized this Tuesday the court’s Prosecutor’s Office to resume the investigation into the alleged commission of crimes against humanity in Venezuela.
“The Chamber concluded that, although Venezuela is taking some investigative measures, its internal criminal proceedings do not sufficiently reflect the scope of the investigation planned by the Prosecutor’s Office,” the ICC said in a statement.
In reaching this conclusion, the Chamber considered the factors by which the country “is not investigating the allegations of fact that underlie the contextual elements of crimes against humanity” and that the focus of internal investigations “appears to be generally in direct and/or lower-level perpetrators.”
However, the Chamber clarified that this decision does not prevent Venezuela from providing material for the case in the future.
has contacted the Venezuelan Public Ministry for comment.
A few weeks ago, following a visit by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan to Caracas, Attorney General Tarek William Saab said that the state “intends to do justice.”
As background, on April 21, 2022, the Prosecutor’s Office notified the Preliminary Questions Chamber that it had received a request from Venezuela to defer the investigations in favor of the actions carried out by the local authorities.
On November 1, 2022, the Prosecutor’s Office filed an application with the Chamber requesting authorization to resume the investigation opened a year earlier.
The issue dates back to September 2018 when a group of six countries sent a request to the ICC Prosecutor’s Office to open an investigation to determine whether to charge charges against crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the actions of security forces. in the midst of anti-government protests and against dissident voices since February 12, 2014.
In the past, the government of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, described the accusations against him as fallacies and denies that crimes against humanity have occurred in the country and at the same time they say they have presented information that in their opinion evidences what they consider to have been done. been the political nature of the process initiated by the ICC.
Osmary Hernández contributed to this report
