Almasri Case, complaint to The Hague against the Italian government. The ICC: "No investigation"
Rome's firm denial of the investigation: "There are no open proceedings to date"
Giorgia Meloni and Carlo Nordio (Ansa)
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The Almasri case is far from over. The day after the ministers' briefing and the brawl in Parliament, this time the clash is between the Italian government and the International Criminal Court.
The newspaper Avvenire reports the news: in a complaint received by the Prosecutor's Office , the names of Giorgia Meloni, Carlo Nordio and Matteo Piantedosi are indicated . The document that came to the attention of the judges was transmitted by the lawyers of a Sudanese refugee who in 2019 had told international investigators about the torture that he and his wife had suffered from the general when they were imprisoned in Libya .
In the 23-page complaint, the asylum seeker, a Sudanese citizen from Darfur with refugee status in France, claims that his wife, himself and countless members of the group to which he belongs have been victims of “numerous and continuous crimes.” In 2019, the man - according to the Avvenire article - had submitted a communication to the Office of the Prosecutor providing “a wide range of evidence” that he said implicated senior EU and Italian officials, including former Italian prime ministers and ministers, for having facilitated the commission of human rights crimes in Libya. According to the report, by not handing Almasri over to the ICC, the prime minister and ministers “abused their executive powers to disobey their international and national obligations.”
His testimony is among those contained in the indictment attached to the arrest warrant for the Libyan official accused of war crimes and crimes against human rights.
The letter was registered by the Court and the Catholic newspaper itself - showing a partial image of a document bearing a serial number - refers to the "opening of a file in The Hague". The denial that comes from government sources is dry: " To date, there are no proceedings opened against Italy by the International Criminal Court. The prosecutor - the same sources explain - has not officially sent the complaint of the Sudanese citizen to the chancellor or to the judges. The Sudanese refugee - it is explained again - sent an email to the dedicated email address of the prosecutor's office. There are many communications, each one is examined and only if it is considered well-founded can a proceeding be initiated, which takes months. The whole thing is usually kept confidential, unless the complainant himself reveals it to the public".
The ICC itself, through its spokesperson, attempted to clarify : «According to the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the international tribunal, any individual or group from any part of the world can send information to the prosecutor of the Court»: these are «communications», which «the prosecutor's office does not comment on». And the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, after meeting the President of the ICC Tomoko Akane, underlined «the independence and impartiality of the Court».
Meanwhile, the opposition is not staying on the sidelines of the storm and is ready to take the field again, this time in the European Parliament. The European Parliament has scheduled a debate for Tuesday, February 11 in Strasbourg on "the protection of the international justice system and its institutions, in particular the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice": the Five Star Movement and the Italian Left promise to use it to bring the case of the released Libyan general to Europe.
Carlo Nordio 's comment on "Un giorno da pecora". « I believe that in this world everyone investigates a little about everything. We have faith in human justice. I postulate divine justice precisely because human justice is often fallible , but let's be content with what we have and see how it goes. I would like every person who has committed a crime to be judged and, if found guilty, convicted and the sentence carried out according to the rules and procedures. Yesterday it was also said that Almasri was a torturer, regardless of the wrong mandate of the ICC. But if we followed this criterion, not even the Nuremberg Tribunal would make sense: the courts exist because they must respect the rules. First of all, the laws must be applied, otherwise we go back to taking justice into our own hands. The idea that a torturer must be punished as such regardless of whether the rules are respected means delegitimizing the very existence of international courts».
(Online Union)
