President Nicolás Maduro says Venezuelan government respects ICC decision to open probe, but ‘we do not share it’.
By Aljazeera
Nov 3, 2021
The International Criminal Court will investigate whether crimes against humanity were committed during Venezuela’s clampdown on anti-government protests in 2017, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan have announced.
After a preliminary evaluation, Khan “has decided to move on to the next phase to seek the truth”, Maduro said on Wednesday.
“We respect his decision as a state, though we have made clear we do not share it,” he said. “We have signed an agreement that does guarantee, in an effective way, cooperation, positive complementarity, mutual support, constructive dialogue to seek truth and justice.”
For his part, Khan stressed the court’s independence and said its investigations should not be politicised.
“I ask everyone, as we enter this new phase, to give my office space to do its work,” he said.
Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch, said on Wednesday evening that the “decision – the first in Latin American history – gives hope of justice to the hundreds of victims of brutal repression by the Maduro regime”.
The ICC has been conducting a preliminary examination into the country since 2018, and Khan’s predecessor Fatou Bensouda said there was a “reasonable basis” to believe the government had committed crimes against humanity.
Maduro complained that the Venezuelan state was not given access to the documents and information evaluated during that phase. “We were blind in that stage,” said the president.
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