Russian President Vladimir Putin must face charges for committing more than 1,000 incidents of crimes of aggression against Ukraine, a “people’s court” met there, saying he should be tried “as soon as possible”.
The ruling from the court – also calling itself the “Ukraine Tribunal” – came a year after Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor and was largely symbolic as it lacked legal force.
“The Court of World Citizens… has heard credible evidence to support the finding that there are strong reasons to believe that the president of the Russian Federation used destructive and destructive armed forces… against Ukraine,” one of the court’s judges said. said he read the verdict.
‘Arrest Putin’
It found “there are compelling reasons to confirm the indictment to be issued against President Vladimirovich Putin for more than 1,000 cases of crimes of aggression committed against the territory and people of Ukraine,” said judge Zak Yacoob.
The court urged “the United Nations, the European Union and all the nations of the world … to ensure that the courts with the power of law issue indictments”, to arrest Putin and “try him in the official courts of Ukraine as soon as possible.”.
The hearing before the court opened on Friday in The Hague, with organizers saying that although symbolic, the aim was to “close the accountability gap” as no current court could try crimes of aggression in Ukraine.
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These crimes include military invasion or occupation as well as the bombing of one country by another country, according to the Rome Statute, the founding document of the International Criminal Court, also based in The Hague.
ICC probe
The ICC is currently investigating possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine, but does not have a mandate to pursue the wider crimes of aggression linked to the invasion.
The judge of the people’s court said that he hoped “as a step towards prosecution”.
“I hope we have the authority of moral force and moral persuasion that will take us somewhere,” said Yacoob, a former South African Constitutional Court judge and anti-apartheid activist.
The “People’s Court of World Citizens” was launched in 2021 by the famous Nuremburg Nazi trial prosecutor Ben Ferencz, the Ukrainian Peace Cinema and human rights activist Oleksandra Matviichuk, whose NGO was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
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Matviichuk, in an interview with AFP last week urged the UN and the European Union to support Kyiv’s call for a special court to try the top Russian officials.