Violence, torture, rape: Venezuela faces trial before the world court


Violence, torture, rape
Venezuela is threatened with trial before the world court

Venezuela’s government could be tried before the International Criminal Court for “crimes against humanity”. According to a report by former chief prosecutor Bensouda, the prerequisites for a preliminary investigation have been met. Your successor has to decide.

The authoritarian government of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has been committing “crimes against humanity” since at least April 2017, including in its crackdown on the opposition in the country, which fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. This emerges from an interim report by the then chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, which was completed in June and has now been published.

In the report, Bensouda names, for example, imprisonment and other serious forms of imprisonment, torture, rape and other sexual violence, and the persecution of a group for political reasons. The Venezuelan authorities are unwilling to investigate or judge in such cases, it said. In addition, the judicial system lacks independence and impartiality.

“The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court underlines what we have been denouncing for years,” wrote the foreign representative of the government opponents around the self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaidó, Julio Borges, on Twitter.

Bensouda’s successor Karim Khan must now decide whether to open an official investigation. The International Criminal Court prosecutes war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Venezuela dismissed the portrayal of the former chief prosecutor of the World Criminal Court as “worthless accusations”. The Venezuelan attorney general Tarek William Saab wrote on Twitter that this had irresponsibly ignored the cooperation of the attorney general. “We are now working closely with the new chief prosecutor to supplement it.”

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