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The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Monday that it had opened an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity that have been committed in Venezuela.
The office of Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that there were reasons to believe that crimes against humanity had been committed since 2015, when armed protesters began staging violent anti-government protests that involved government security forces and paramilitary groups.
The operation was the first time the ICC has brought charges against Venezuela, one of the only six countries in the world that it does not have an active investigation underway.
“I have received credible evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed with the assistance of the state, and with the direct connivance of officials of the Venezuelan state,” Bensouda said in a statement.
The United States withdrew from the ICC in 2001.
Under the Rome Statute, the ICC “may prosecute and prosecute those who commit genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.”
Read the full article at The New York Times.
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