THE HAGUE, Netherlands
The International Criminal
Court said Thursday it will examine allegations of war crimes by armed groups
in the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile east - after Kinshasa made a new
formal referral to the tribunal.ICC prosecutor Karim Khan
The Democratic Republic of
Congo referred the situation to The Hague-based ICC in 2004, but has now made a
second referral asking that it launch an investigation into the latest alleged
crimes, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said.
"I intend to conduct a
preliminary examination promptly," Khan said in a statement.
Kinshasa has accused the M23
rebel group of attacks in the DRC's mineral-rich North Kivu province, and says
Rwanda is backing the Tutsi-led militia.
Despite denials from Kigali,
independent United Nations experts and several western nations, including the
United States, agree with Kinshasa.
The DRC referred the situation to the Hague-based ICC in 2004, but has now made
a second referral asking that it launch an investigation into the latest
alleged crimes, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said.
"I intend to conduct a
preliminary examination promptly," Khan said in a statement.
The British prosecutor added
that this would initially assess "whether the scope of the two situations
referred by the DRC government are sufficiently linked to constitute a single
situation."
The ICC, founded in 2002 to
prosecute war crimes suspects, carries out preliminary examinations into
alleged atrocities before deciding whether or not to proceed to a full
investigation.
It has already convicted three
former militia leaders over conflicts in the DRC including rebel leader Bosco
"Terminator" Ntaganda, jailed for 30 years for mass murder, rape, and
abduction.
The Tutsi-led M23 has captured
swathes of territory in DRC's North Kivu Province since taking up arms in late
2021 after years of dormancy, with over one million people displaced by the
fighting.
Armed groups have plagued much
of eastern DRC for three decades, a legacy of regional wars that flared in the
1990s and 2000s.
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