(The Hague) The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday rejected a request, made by Bolivia, for an investigation into crimes against humanity concerning former President Evo Morales and the organizers of a vast movement of roadblocks.
Posted yesterday at 4:57 p.m.
The Bolivian government had asked the ICC in September 2020 to investigate this road blocking campaign organized by supporters of Mr. Morales. According to La Paz, the movement caused the death of more than 40 COVID-19 patients because oxygen could not be delivered in time to hospitals.
But ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said on Monday he would not open a formal investigation into the Bolivian roadblocks because the alleged acts fall outside the remit of the court, based in The Hague. .
“After a thorough and independent assessment of the information available to my office, I have concluded that the criteria set out in the Rome Statute […] for the opening of an investigation were not met,” Khan said in a statement.
“I have come to the conclusion that the alleged conduct does not meet the contextual elements of crimes against humanity,” he added.
The Rome Statute defines the rules by which the ICC was created in 2002 to try the worst crimes on the planet.
States can formally report alleged crimes to the ICC, which then conducts a preliminary investigation before deciding whether to open a full investigation.
The Bolivian referral accused Mr. Morales and the organizers of the roadblocks of having deliberately immobilized, during their 12-day campaign, urgently needed medical supplies in hospitals.
The blockades had started in August 2020 after another postponement of the elections by the government.
For Mr. Khan, “the available information does not provide a reasonable basis to believe that the crimes allegedly committed by the organizers of the blockade and the persons who took part in it – even if these crimes were established – constituted a campaign directed against the civilian population of Bolivia”, and therefore a crime against humanity.
The prosecutor specifies that his decision must “in no way be considered as taking a position on the events or the dynamics relating to the alleged facts nor on the experiences lived by the Bolivian people during the events in question”.
Evo Morales, the first Amerindian to govern Bolivia (2006-2019), fled into exile in 2019 after almost 14 years in power, because of major protests against his re-election deemed fraudulent the same year. Regarding the roadblocks, he denounced a “discredit campaign” against him.