ICC's Ukraine probe: UK to contribute money and experts
The Hague: Britain is boosting its support for the International Criminal Court's probe of war crimes in Ukraine with cash and specialist staff as it hosts a meeting of a coalition of nations that back the investigation.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab is meeting ministers from around the world in The Hague on Thursday in a show of support for the ICC's ongoing probe.
The meeting comes a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration has made a formal determination that Russian troops have committed war crimes in Ukraine and would work with others to prosecute offenders.
The US is not a member state of the ICC, but could still assist a prosecution there by helping to gather evidence against Russian forces in Ukraine, using some of the vast abilities it has deployed to track and monitor what has been happening in the conflict.
The US could also provide support and backing to a commission of inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council.
The meeting in The Hague happened as Biden and other NATO leaders gathered in Brussels on the one-month anniversary of the Russian invasion.
The UK is a member of the court and Raab says London will donate 1 million pounds ( 1.3 million) in extra funding for the ICC and assign soldiers with expertise in intelligence gathering to the court to help uncover evidence of war crimes.
A war crimes team in the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command also is being mobilised to help the investigation.
Today, the UK is uniting a coalition of international partners to provide the funding and law enforcement support to reinforce the ICC's investigation into potential war crimes in Ukraine," Raab said in a statement ahead of the meeting.
President Putin and his commanders should know that they will be held to account for their actions, and risk ending up spending the rest of their days behind bars, he added. The ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, opened an investigation earlier this month after dozens of the ICC's member states formally asked him to launch
a probe.
