Ukraine wants global court to probe crimes in Crimea

The Hague, April 17

Ukraine wants the International Criminal Court to investigate all alleged recent war crimes in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said in an interview, broadening an existing probe.

Ukraine has already given the global court the authority to investigate crimes on its territory from November 21, 2013, to February 22, 2014, the period leading up to the fall of Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovich.

Russia annexed Crimea soon after, and later in 2014 fighting erupted in eastern Ukraine between Kiev’s forces and pro-Russian separatists. Kiev accuses Russia of sending arms and troops to aid the rebels, which Moscow denies.

“We are quite optimistic about more, definitely more, engagement of the ICC,” Pavlo Klimkin told Reuters before meeting the court’s president and prosecutor on Friday. An ICC referral would cover “everything under the (ICC) mandate, including crimes against humanity”, he said.

Klimkin named the attack on the strategic port of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine which killed 30 in January as an example of a crime against humanity.

“The shelling killed, in seconds, more than 30 people and heavily wounded 100 people,” Klimkin said. “If you deliberately shell and, I stress, deliberately shell cities, killing civilians, it’s a completely different situation (from military operations) and we have to engage the ICC.” The wider probe proposed by Klimkin would for the first time consider allegations of direct Russian involvement.

Ukraine is also examining the possibility of launching a case against Russia at another court in The Hague, the International Court of Justice, the highest U.N. court for territorial disputes, Klimkin said.

There was no immediate reaction from Russian authorities to Klimkin’s comments. — Reuters