THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A “people’s court” tried Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday for the crime of aggression for his invasion of Ukraine, in a symbolic move aimed at closing a “responsibility gap” in the absence of a competent international tribunal.
The court has no legal powers, but prosecutors said they would present evidence that Putin committed the crime of aggression when he ordered the invasion nearly a year ago, sparking a devastating war that killed thousands of people and left towns and villages in ruins.
“This is a crime that belongs in the annals of infamy. This is a crime that demands accountability,” said Drew White, a Canadian lawyer serving as one of the court’s prosecutors.
Although the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into crimes committed in Ukraine, it has no jurisdiction to prosecute Russian leaders for aggression.
However, international pressure is mounting for a special tribunal to be established to prosecute the crime. The European Union legislature passed a non-binding resolution in January calling on the 27-nation bloc to work “in close cooperation with Ukraine to seek and strengthen political support from the UN General Assembly and other international forums…to create the special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
The Netherlands, home to several international tribunals, has offered to host the tribunal.
The People’s Court is an initiative of rights group Cinema for Peace, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties and Ben Ferencz, the 102-year-old lawyer who is the last surviving prosecutor of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials against top Nazi leaders.
A week of hearings opened in The Hague two days after US Vice President Kamala Harris said Washington had determined that Russian forces in Ukraine had committed crimes against humanity and had insisted that the perpetrators be brought to justice.
The first day of Monday also coincided with an unannounced visit to Kyiv by US President Joe Biden.
The court is due to deliver its verdict on Friday, the anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Putin was invited to take part in the hearing, but the organizers received no response from the Russian Embassy in The Hague.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk of the Ukrainian Civil Liberties Organization made a statement via video link ahead of the opening session.
“Putin and the political leaders and military high command who initiated, planned and unleashed this war of aggression must be punished for this international crime,” she said.
The first witness was a Ukrainian journalist, Angela Slobodyan, who told a three-judge panel that she was in the city of Kherson when Russian forces arrived “shooting everything that moved”.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
ABC News
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