According to Reuters, the appeals judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have rejected Venezuela’s appeal against a decision to resume an investigation into alleged human rights abuses by government officials. Last year, Caracas had appealed a decision to resume the probe, contending that its prosecution should activate the complementarity principle, under which the court can intervene only if a country is not already investigating the same suspected crimes.
The appeals judges on Friday unanimously dismissed all grounds of appeal and authorized the ICC’s prosecutor to proceed with the investigation into the abuses, which could potentially be classified as crimes against humanity. The Venezuelan government has alleged that political opponents have exploited some incidents of human rights abuses during President Nicolas Maduro’s rule. The authorities assert that they are already examining claims of abuses and that there have been no large-scale crimes against humanity.
In 2020, the ICC prosecutor indicated that there was a credible basis to believe that government and military officials in Venezuela had committed crimes against humanity since 2017. The year 2017 witnessed protesters conducting months of demonstrations against the government, during which there were allegations of torture, arbitrary arrests, and mistreatment by security forces. The protests resulted in the deaths of 125 individuals.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg)
