Russia plans to file suit against Ukraine in International Court of Justice

© Michplay

12:14 06/05/2014

MOSCOW, May 6 (RAPSI) – Russia’s State Duma has started collecting documents on the death of people in Ukraine for a lawsuit it plans to file with the Hague-based International Court of Justice, Izvestia newspaper writes on Tuesday, citing MPs.

After the Odessa massacre, where over 40 anti-Maidan activists died in a fire at the Trade Unions House, First Deputy Head of the State Duma Committee on Public and Religious Organizations Mikhail Markelov said that responsibility for the death of civilians in Odessa, Slavyansk and other Ukrainian cities fully rests with the current Kiev authorities.

Markelov recalled that ex-President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic were tried in The Hague for political and military crimes, respectively, committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia. He proposed using this scheme with regard to the “illegitimate Kiev authorities.”

According to the newspaper, the MPs are collecting documents for instituting a lawsuit with the ICC and intend to ask the Foreign Ministry to support their initiative.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry earlier prepared for President Vladimir Putin a report on human rights violations in Ukraine in the period from late November 2013 to the end of March 2014.

Izvestia learned at the Ministry that its report can be used in the OSCE and the UN and also in a court as evidence of the Kiev authorities’ crimes. President Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told Izvestia that the Foreign Ministry’s document could be used as the basis for filing a suit with the Hague court.

On February 22, radicals seized power in violation of the February 21 crisis settlement agreement signed by Ukraine’s opposition leaders and President Viktor Yanukovych in the presence of the French, German and Polish foreign ministers. The Verkhovna Rada announced the deposition of Yanukovych, reinstated the 2004 constitution and set early presidential elections for May 25.

Moscow questions the legitimacy of the Rada’s decisions.

Mass protests led by pro-Russian activists are ongoing in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk. Ukraine saw Friday, May 2, the bloodiest violence since the February overthrow of Yanukovych, with dozens allegedly killed in clashes between local nationalists and pro-Russian activists across the country.

The highest casualty toll was reported in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, where 46 people died and over 200 were injured in clashes between Right Sector nationalists and their opponents. Of the more than 170 people who were detained in the aftermath of the deadly riots, 67 have been released.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands is the first permanent international tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The ICC was created by the Rome Statute (1998) and came into force in 2002. Russia, Ukraine, the United States and China have not ratified the Rome Statute and hence have not accepted the jurisdiction of the court.

On April 14, 2014, Ukraine’s cabinet recommended the parliament to ratify the Rome Statute without delay.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague was established by the UN Security Council to prosecute serious crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and to try their perpetrators.