Venezuela attacks the impartiality of the Hague Tribunal

CARACAS (AP) — The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounced on Tuesday the existence of alleged links between the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and organizations that feed the investigation into alleged crimes against humanity. that weigh on the country. American for the 2017 protests in which 120 people died.

According to a statement issued by the Venezuelan government, which does not give details, there are “proven links between the ICC prosecution and non-governmental organizations that have provided information against the national authorities in this case”.

This calls into question the impartiality and objectivity of the said court, according to the message of the complaint.

Venezuela’s questions against the Hague-based ICC came just as the deadline for the country to present its case against the official investigation opened in November 2021 expires.

ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan called last November for the reopening of his investigation into allegations of torture and extrajudicial executions allegedly committed by Venezuelan police and national guardsmen under Maduro during the crackdown on anti-government protests in 2017. Six months before the request to reopen the investigation, Venezuela had asked the ICC to stay the investigation against the Venezuelan authorities.

The ICC is a court of last resort that investigates alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes when nations are unable or unwilling to do so, a system known as complementarity.

Although the Court recognized that the Venezuelan authorities have undertaken legal reforms, it found that “they continue to be insufficient in scope or have not yet had a concrete impact on potentially relevant processes”.

The Venezuelan government, for its part, maintained that its judicial system is permanently activated to guarantee justice under its jurisdiction and dismissed the accusations of the absence of concrete measures to determine the criminal responsibility of the suspects as “gratuitous and false”. .

Caracas speaks of “media errors and geopolitical aggression” that accuse Venezuela of crimes that amount to an attack on fundamental human rights. Something that “has never happened”, underlines the press release.

The government attributes the process before the Court in The Hague to a “regime change” strategy promoted by Washington, alluding to the fact that Venezuela provided “abundant information that shows the political nature” of the investigation.

The trial against Venezuela concerns, among other crimes, the deaths of more than a hundred people during the massive demonstrations of 2017. The trials and convictions fell on the material perpetrators of some of these crimes, most of them security force officers. ; but so far they have failed to establish accountability in the chain of command, according to complaints from opponents and human rights activists.

The Maduro administration has signed a memorandum of understanding with Prosecutor Khan in which it pledges to cooperate in clarifying the facts that led to the initiation of the process. The victims have until March 7 to present their testimonies.

But Tuesday’s statement denounces “various irregularities and violations of the right to due process committed by the ICC prosecutor’s office, including the powerlessness to which the Venezuelan state has been subjected throughout the process”, adds the letter.

The case has been brought to the ICC by member states Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay and Peru, which have called for an investigation into crimes allegedly committed since early 2014.

Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, conducted a preliminary investigation and said in 2020 that she had found a reasonable basis to conclude that crimes against humanity had been committed in Venezuela since at least April 2017.