São Paulo – The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, announced this Friday (16) the opening of a preliminary examination of the situation in Palestine. The decision occurs just days after the accession of the country to the court, which has its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.
In the first day of the year, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas sent the Court a document declaring that the country recognizes “the jusrisdiction of the Court for the purpose of identifying, prosecuting and judging authors and accomplices of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court committed in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, since June 13, 2014”.
Palestinians want the court to investigate the last series of attacks by Israeli armed forces to Gaza strip, which lasted 50 days and resulted in the death of more than 2,000 Palestinians and 70 Israelis, and events that occurred previous to the conflict. The court has jurisdiction to judge cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A press release sent out by the prosecutor’s office informs that the procedure opened this Friday is not an investigation, but a previous and required procedure. Therefore, according to the release, there will be a process of examining the information available on the case so the prosecutor’s office can reach a fully informed determination about whether to start or not an investigation.
For that to happen, according to the release, the prosecutor’s office must consider issues of jurisdiction, admissibility and the interests of justice. The office informed that all information and opinions submitted to it during the preliminary examination procedure will be given “due consideration”. “The office will conduct its analysis in full Independence and impartiality”, says the release.
According to the prosecutor’s office, there are no timelines for the procedure. “Depending on the facts and circumstances of each situation, the Office will decide whether to continue to collect information to establish a sufficient factual and legal basis to render a determination; initiate an investigation, subject to judicial review as appropriate; or decline to initiate an investigation”, says the release.
The prosecutor’s office also informed that nine other investigations were opened, all of them refering to facts occurred in African countries: Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan (conflict in Darfur); Central African Republic, Kenya, Libya, Ivory Coast and Mali.
The prosecutor’s office also declared that it is conducting preliminary examinations relating to situations in Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Guinea-Conakry, Honduras, Iraq, Nigeria and Ukraine.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
