The International Criminal Court (ICC) asks Venezuela to present “a reply, not to exceed 10 pages, no later than April 20” to respond to an argument by prosecutor Karim Khan, who dismissed the reasons presented by Caracas regarding the reopening of the investigation for alleged crimes against humanity committed in the Caribbean country.
This was the reaction of the Preliminary Questions Chamber to the request from Caracas, which had requested its authorization to “respond to various elements” indicated by the prosecutor “at the latest on April 28”, and that it will now have to present eight days before .
The points that Venezuela intends to answer are, specifically, two: a comparison of the prosecutor’s evaluation with that of the preliminary questions room at the time of initiating the investigations; and the way in which “the alleged discriminatory intent would be reflected in internal procedures.”
“Considering the limited scope of the reply, and in order to ensure the expeditious conduct of the proceeding, the Chamber invites Venezuela to submit a reply, not to exceed 10 pages, no later than April 20, 2023,” it said. the Chamber, which only authorized the Venezuelan Government to answer the first question of a legal nature, but not the second.
The context
On November 1, Khan asked the Chamber for authorization to continue the investigation into the alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela, after it was suspended at the request of Caracas. Two weeks later, the Chamber asked Venezuela to submit its observations on the prosecutor’s request.
On March 1, the prosecutor received some observations submitted by Venezuela, to which he responded in a document sent to Caracas on the 28th of the same month. In his formal reaction, Venezuela requested more time to respond to these two specific points and maintained that the prosecutor’s response “raised a new issue that the State could not have reasonably anticipated.”
The prosecutor then stated, on March 31, that the issues identified by the Venezuelan legal team “are not new” and “could have been reasonably anticipated,” but left the decision whether or not to give Caracas more time to the Chamber. and authorize points to which you can respond.
The ICC Rules provide that the country or prosecutor “may only respond to a response with the permission of the Chamber” and that the response “should be limited to new issues raised in the response that the responding participant could not have reasonably anticipated.” ”, literally says the norm.
In this sense, the Chamber considered that the question related to the “evaluation” of the prosecutor is something that Caracas “could not have anticipated” and that is why it has until April 20 to respond, but it left out the “discriminatory” question because this Yes, “it could have been anticipated” from arguments previously presented, so this “does not deserve a response,” says the Chamber.
political reaction
Precisely on this exchange of legal arguments about the opening of the investigation, Venezuela accused prosecutor Karim Khan yesterday of “instrumentalizing” justice “for political purposes”, after the publication of the document of March 31, in which the Prosecutor’s Office dismisses the arguments presented by the Government of Nicolás Maduro.
“Once again, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court shows a clearly prejudiced vision in relation to Venezuela, reproducing without consideration the campaigns that seek to instrumentalize the issue of justice and human rights for political purposes,” said the Government of Venezuela in an official statement released by the Foreign Ministry.
In addition, he recalled that, on February 28, he presented to the ICC “a solid document that disproves all the fallacies of the media and geopolitical aggression launched to accuse Venezuela of alleged crimes against humanity, which have never occurred.”
With information from El Nacional
