Human rights activists to submit evidence of Crimea occupation crimes to ICC

The human rights defenders will submit evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed during the occupation of Crimea, to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

This was stated by Chair of Board of the Human Rights Information Centre Tetiana Pechonchyk during presentation of the report “Crimea without rules.”

She said that the crimes related to destruction and appropriation of property, use of civilians to shield and seize military units, unlawful deportation, and the like.

The experts consider the resettlement of Russian citizens to the occupied territory to be one of the most serious crimes.

“This crime causes the demographic shift, the change in composition of the population. This is one of the most severe crimes that can be imagined. It is also the compulsory recruitment into the armed forces of the occupying state without the right to choose,” lawyer Anton Korynevych said.

“The facts, which we are going to submit to the International Criminal Court, cover murders, tortures, and enforced disappearances. If we talk about murders, it can be murder of Rishat Ametov or of Ukrainian serviceman Serhiy Kokurin. There was an outbreak of abductions and torture in March 2014,” Tetiana Pechonchyk stressed.

As reported, this February the Parliament of Ukraine voted to expand the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to cover the crimes that have been committed during the occupation of Crimea and Donbas. Under the Rome Statute of the ICC, which Ukraine has not yet ratified, the prosecutor of the court can investigate the crimes in Ukraine under ad hoc procedure after the state makes appropriate application.