Piotr Jozef Hofmanski, the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has said the Hague-based court was never set up to target Africans.
Speaking to Accra-based Radio station, Asaase, Hofmanski said, “It was never the case…It was never the case that it [the ICC] was trying to be biased against African leaders.”
“The reason for which mainly African cases are tried and are still being tried in the court is the beginning of the existence of the court, the African states referred the cases to the ICC for prosecutions; and at the beginning of the existence of the court followed these referrals, and started investigations on some of the African states. The result is that today all these situations are at the trial phase and all the trials from the courtroom arise from African situations.”
He added, “It is very true but at the same time, now we are at all continents of the world; as I said 16 situations and the newest situations are in Asia [Philippines, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Palestine]. There are situations in South America [Columbia and Venezuela] and we have situations in Europe [Georgia and Ukraine]. And it would be expected that in future there would be less African cases…the African group of states is the biggest one and we’re very happy about it…”
“Greatest success”
Hofmanski said though it will be difficult to fully assess the success of the international court, it has made a lot of progress.
He added, “I think that the greatest success [of the ICC] is the victim issue; the fact that we provide hundreds of thousands of reparations for victims especially from Africa because the first cases came from this continent.”
“Greatest success”
