DODOMA-(MaraviPost)-Legal representatives of thousands of Tanzanians allegedly killed during post-election protests have formally filed a request to indict President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
The request also names several senior security officers within her government as potential subjects of investigation.
The application has been submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the global judicial body responsible for prosecuting individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
The allegations relate to killings and human rights abuses that occurred following Tanzania’s controversial general elections.
Observers note that the post-election period was marked by widespread protests and a harsh security crackdown.
Human rights groups have reported numerous casualties, injuries, and destruction of property during the unrest.
The legal action seeks to hold the highest levels of government accountable for the alleged violence against civilians.
It also underscores the growing international attention on the Tanzanian government’s handling of dissent and civil unrest.
The ICC process, if accepted, could trigger a formal investigation into the actions of President Samia and her security officials.
This development adds to the political and legal pressure on Tanzania as the country continues to grapple with the consequences of its recent elections.
Civil society organizations have welcomed the move, describing it as an important step toward justice for the victims.
The Tanzanian government has not yet issued a public response to the ICC filing.
International observers are closely monitoring the situation, noting the potential implications for governance, accountability, and human rights in the country.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sentenced Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, the former head of the Islamic police in Timbuktu, Mali, to 10 years in prison for war crimes.
Prosecutors accused Al-Hassan, 47, of leading a “reign of terror” after the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine group seized the historic city in 2012. He was found guilty of torture, overseeing public amputations, and organizing brutal floggings, including of children.
Presiding judge Kimberly Prost described the sentence as “proportionate to the gravity of the crimes,” acknowledging the harm caused to victims.
Al-Hassan who denies guilt was acquitted of charges of rape, sexual slavery, and the destruction of Timbuktu’s ancient mausoleums. While the ICC recognized that crimes of sexual violence occurred under Ansar Dine’s rule, the court ruled he was not directly responsible.
Both sides have appealed.
Rights groups expressed disappointment over his acquittal on gender-based crimes, noting testimonies of women being raped in detention.
Al-Hassan was handed over to the ICC in 2018 by Malian authorities. His 6 years in detention will be deducted from the sentence.
The court took into account “mitigating circumstances”, namely “the minor actions of Mr Al Hassan to assist the civilian population in 2012-2013” and “his cooperation with the Prosecution at the investigation stage.”
Reparations for victims will be addressed later.
Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site and center of Islamic learning from the 13th to 17th centuries, suffered significant damage during the 2012 Islamist occupation. Another Ansar Dine member, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, was sentenced to nine years in 2016 for destroying the city’s ancient shrines.
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa has formally written BRICS leaders through their embassies and associated political parties to consider a boycott of the BRICS Summit to be held in South Africa from the 22nd to 24th of August 2023.
The EFF has made the call in response to the South African Government’s decision to effectively block Russia’s President Vladimir Putin from attending the BRICS Summit under irrational pressure and bullying by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In a communication addressed to the heads of state of the BRICS nations, the EFF has emphasized the importance of solidarity among BRICS nations and cautions against succumbing to neo-colonial pressures from the West.
The communication has urged the BRICS nations to uphold the principles upon which they were founded; mutual respect, understanding, cooperation, and non-interference saying the absence of any member, threatens the unity, strength, and future influence of BRICS on the global stage.
“We request the BRICS leaders to stand together against external pressures and to consider the implications of their attendance or non-attendance at the Summit,” reads the communication in part.
The EFF says it believes that this matter is of utmost importance, reflecting not just the integrity and unity of the BRICS organization but also the future direction of global politics and economics.
Speaking at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg- South Africa on EFF’s 10th Anniversary celebrations, the Leader of the EFF, Julius Malema assured the BRICS members that BRICS will be strengthened and is an alternative to Europe and America.
Malema assured the West that the South Africans are with Putin claiming that it is not the South Africans that have refused Russian President Vladimir Putin from coming into that country for BRICS Summit from 22nd to 24th August, 2023 in South Africa.
He said Putin was refused entry into South Africa by the coward South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa who could not guarantee that he will not arrest Putin in line with the conditions set by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest him for war crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
“We are Putin, Putin is in us, we will never support imperialism against Putin,” said Malema.
PRETORIA-(MaraviPost)-The ruling ANC says South Africa’s withdrawal had been raised at a meeting of its executive council but the country remains a signatory to the court.
South Africa is not planning to quit the International Criminal Court (ICC) as suggested earlier by President Cyril Ramaphosa, his office says, citing a communication error from his ruling ANC party.
Hours earlier, Ramaphosa had said the African National Congress (ANC) had decided to withdraw South Africa from the court, which last month issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The ICC warrant means South Africa – due to host this year’s BRICS summit of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – would have to detain Putin on arrival.
“The presidency wishes to clarify that South Africa remains a signatory” to the ICC, Ramaphosa’s office said on Tuesday in a late-night statement.
It said the “clarification follows an error in a comment made during a media briefing held by the governing African National Congress”.
The ANC had earlier told journalists that the issue of South Africa withdrawing from the ICC had been raised at a weekend meeting of its national executive council.
Then, when questioned by a journalist during a joint news conference with visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, Ramaphosa said the ANC “has taken that decision that it is prudent that South Africa should pull out of the ICC”.
The presidency said “regrettably” Ramaphosa had “erroneously affirmed a similar position” to the ruling party.
In another statement Tuesday night, the ANC said an “unintended impression may have been created that a categorical decision for an immediate withdrawal had been taken. This is not so.”
It said the executive committee, the party’s supreme decision-making body, had discussed the “unequal” and “often selective application of international law by the ICC”.
MOSCOW-(MaraviPost)-Chinese leader Xi Jinping landed in Russia on Monday for a much-anticipated three-day state visit, taking a joint stand with President Vladimir Putin against the West even as the Russian leader stands accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of war crimes in Ukraine.
According to The Washington Post, the two men, each positioned as “leader for life” of a nuclear power, celebrated their “no limits” relationship in Beijing together in early 2022, just weeks before Putin ordered his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and they have met about 40 times.
But Monday’s visit, the first by Xi since the invasion, represents a display of tacit support by China for the war and a personal triumph for Putin, who is eager to show he is not isolated on the international stage.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Russia to Stand with Putin
Xi’s plane arrived at Vnukovo International Airport just southwest of the Russian capital at approximately 1 p.m. local time Monday.
The presidential motorcade then made its way to the center of Moscow, where dozens of people waving Chinese and Russian flags greeted the delegation outside his hotel, the Soluxe Hotel in the north of the city.
Initial talks were scheduled to begin in the afternoon, followed by a dinner later with Putin.
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China’s Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow on March 20, marking his first visit to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. (Video: Russia 24)
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the leaders would discuss the prospects for peace “one way or another” and that Ukraine would “undoubtedly be on the agenda.”
With the world’s attention focused on Xi’s appearance in Moscow, the Ukrainian government on Monday urged the Chinese leader to press Putin to respect the United Nations Charter, withdraw Russia’s occupying forces and restore Kyiv’s territorial integrity.
“We expect Beijing to use its influence on Moscow to make it put an end to the aggressive war against Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko told The Washington Post. “We stand ready to engage in a closer dialogue with China in order to restore peace in Ukraine in accordance with the principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter, and the latest [U.N. General Assembly] resolution on this matter.”
Ahead of the meeting, the two leaders each published articles — Xi’s carried in Rossiyskaya Gazeta; Putin’s in the People’s Daily — in which they denounced what they portrayed as U.S.-led Western hegemony, and arrogance.
Putin attacked the United States directly in his article. “The U.S.’s policy of simultaneously deterring Russia and China, as well as all those who do not bend to American dictation, is getting ever more fierce and aggressive,” Putin wrote. “The international security and cooperation architecture is being dismantled. Russia has been labeled an ‘immediate threat’ and China a ‘strategic competitor.’”
Xi merely alluded to Washington, writing: “The international community is well aware that no country in the world is superior to all others. There is no universal model of government and there is no world order where the decisive word belongs to a single country. Solidarity and peace on the planet without splits and upheavals meet the common interests of all mankind.”
Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has pursued an increasingly assertive foreign policy to counter what Beijing sees as U.S. efforts to contain China. Its friendship with Moscow is a key part of China’s strategy to subvert Western-imposed isolation.
Xi and Putin are expected to discuss opportunities to build their bilateral partnership, including greater economic cooperation, which has soared over the past year and become increasingly vital to Russia amid the bite of Western sanctions and punitive measures against Russian energy exports. In 2022, Chinese exports to Russia increased by 12.8 percent, while Russian exports to China of crude oil increased, in dollar terms, by 44 percent and exports of natural gas more than doubled, according to industry data.
The leaders may also address Russia’s needfor lethal weapons from China, as the war in Ukraine stalls and Kyiv awaits deliveries of more powerful and sophisticated weapons from the West, including battle tanks and air defenses.
China professes to be neutral in the war, but Xi has not condemned Russia’s invasion or Putin’s effort to annex four Ukrainian regions in a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and international law.
Xi is expected to raise to a 12-point peace plan he put forward last month, which called for an end to “unilateral sanctions” but notably did not demand Russia’s withdrawal from occupied Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed openness to speaking with Xi but has vowed to reclaim all occupied lands.
Xi’s trip, while delivering Putin a much-needed distraction from Russia’s failures on the battlefield, also highlights his country’s growing dependence on China, one of its few remaining allies and partners.
“We have high expectations for the upcoming talks,” Putin wrote in the People’s Daily article. “We have no doubt that they will give a new powerful impetus to our bilateral cooperation in its entirety. This is also a great opportunity for me to meet with my good old friend with whom we enjoy the warmest relationship.”
Meanwhile, Xi wrote that the visit aimed to strengthen the countries’ “friendship, cooperation and peace.”
“I am ready, together with President Vladimir Putin, to outline new plans and measures in the name of opening up new prospects for China-Russia relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation,” he wrote.
Over the weekend, Putin made a surprise trip to the occupied city of Mariupol, once again staking his claim to invaded Ukrainian lands. Russian forces all but destroyed the city during a months-long siege before seizing it last spring.
Ukrainians reacted with anger and dismay to the visit, noting that Putin is accused by the International Criminal Court of illegally taking Ukrainian thousands children to Russia, many of whom came from Mariupol.
Xi is also expected to speaking to Zelensky following his Russia trip, which will be capped by a formal state dinner at the Kremlin.
A spokesman for Zelensky, Serhiy Nykyforov, said Friday that “there are no specific agreements” about when the call would take place but that “the work is in progress.”
“This topic, among others, was discussed by foreign ministers of Ukraine and China,” Nykyforov wrote in a text message.
MOSCOW-(MaraviPost)-An arrest warrant has been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Russia President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes relating to the abduction of Ukrainian children.
This follows war between Russia and Ukraine since February 2022.
Putin on ICC arrest warrant
But in brief telephone conference call with BBC journalist on Friday evening, March 17, 2023, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov had this response to the ICC arrest warrant for President Putin:
“The very question [raised by the ICC] is outrageous and unacceptable. Russia, along with several other states, does not recognise the jurisdiction of that court and thus any decisions of this kind for Russia are null and void from a legal point of view.”
Peskov declined to take any further questions on the subject.
HAGUE-(MaraviPost)-The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sentenced 45-year-old Dominic Ongwen, a former commander of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to 25 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Uganda.
The Presiding ICC Judge Bertram Schmitt passed the verdict on Thursday, May 6, 2021 after Ongwen was found guilty in February of 61 charges including murders, rapes and sexual enslavement.
Before assuming the position of commander, Dominic Ongwen was reportedly abducted at the estimated age of nine by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as he was walking to school in northern Uganda between 1987 and 1988.
He later became the brigadier in the army around his late 20s after winning the confidence of LRA leader Joseph Kony.
The court in February heard that Ongwen personally ordered his soldiers to carry out mass killings of more than 130 civilians at refugee camps between 2002 and 2005.
In early 2015, he surrendered to US special forces who were hunting Kony in Central African Republic (CAR). He is the first person convicted by the ICC of the crime of forced pregnancy, for abducting and raping so-called “wives”, some of whom were underage, Al Jazeera reported.
His defence lawyers have always cast him as a victim of the LRA’s brutality who was traumatised after being abducted as a nine-year-old boy and turned into a child soldier in the group’s violent insurgency.
Before the verdict, Ongwen told the court that the LRA forced him to eat beans soaked with the blood of the first people he was made to kill as part of a brutal initiation following his own abduction aged nine.
The Prosecutors had asked for a 20-year prison term for Ongwen and not the maximum 30 years to life allowed by the ICC due to his history as a justification for the lower sentence.
However, the victims of his crimes had asked the court to impose a full life sentence on the former child soldier, while the defence had sought a 10-year prison term.
The LRA was founded 30 years ago by former Catholic altar boy and self-styled prophet Kony, who launched a bloody rebellion in northern Uganda against President Yoweri Museveni which left more than 100,000 people dead and 60,000 children abducted.
The group’s founder, Joseph Kony, is believed to still be at large and is the subject of an arrest warrant from the Hague-based court.
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