On Thursday, Kyiv’s top prosecutor said Russian officials should be tried for the invasion of Ukraine even if they cannot be caught and brought to court.
During a stopover at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told Reuters that a proposed aggression tribunal should handle cases in absentia.
Kostin said after meeting with the lead ICC prosecutor, who issued an arrest request last week for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children’s commissioner for the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.
Due to legal restrictions, the ICC cannot pursue violence in Ukraine.
A special tribunal to punish Russian officials for the 13-month invasion, deemed a crime of aggression by Ukraine and Western countries, is gaining international backing.
“The top political and military leadership, including Putin, for the crime of aggression,” Kostin added.
“I think it may be held in absentia because it’s vital to serve justice for international crimes even if culprits aren’t there.”
The ICC’s guidelines require an accused suspect to attend the trial.
In 2005, a U.N.-backed tribunal convicted three individuals for assassinating Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri.
This year, a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian of downing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014. No suspects appeared in court.
On Monday, Russia’s top investigative authority started a criminal complaint against the ICC prosecutor and judges who issued an arrest order for Putin, which Moscow branded absurd and illegal.
Russia claims to have transferred hundreds of Ukrainian youngsters to Russia in a humanitarian effort to safeguard orphans and abandoned children in the combat zone.
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