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There will be “a case to be answered in due course” on Russia’s alleged war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN on Tuesday.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of the truth because there’s no place in the courtroom to hide. Regardless of the narratives and counter-narratives, the evidence should be properly examined … and there will — I think — be a case in due course that needs answering,” CNN’s Khan Anderson Cooper said during a wide-ranging interview when asked how the ICC doing this could set up a case in Ukraine.
Khan made the comments while reviewing images shared with CNN by Ukrainian prosecutors while investigating alleged Russian war crimes.
Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, was occupied by Russian forces for about three weeks in March. The photos – taken March 5-7 – show the bodies of civilians strewn in the streets in several locations around the city.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings of civilians in Ukraine, while repeating baseless claims that pictures of dead bodies on the streets of Bucha were “fake”.
Khan addressed Russia’s disinformation directly. “The bodies that are in those bags on screen are not fake. I saw her. I stood next to them. The question is how did they die, who is responsible and under what circumstances?” Khan said, adding that the world is watching how “effective the rule of law” would be in relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
We need to move forward in a way that may be much more effective than in the past,” Khan stated, hinting at jurisdictional issues the ICC faces.
On Monday, the ICC joined an EU investigation into possible war crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, marking the court’s first joint investigation in its twenty-year history.
“The Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court in The Hague will become part of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) into alleged serious international crimes committed in Ukraine,” the EU Agency for Judicial Cooperation said in a statement.
During a visit to the cities of Bucha and Borodianka in mid-April, Khan said there was “reasonable reason to believe that crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the ICC were being committed there.”
But Khan also warned that given Russia’s decision to withdraw its signature from the ICC statute, which gives the court jurisdiction, it could try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
Russia also does not extradite its citizens to other countries.
Evidence of mass graves in the cities of Bucha and Borodianka has surfaced since early April following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv region.
