GENOA (Sputnik) – It is highly unlikely that a case on the United States’ killing of Iran’s top military commander, Qasem Soleimani, will end up in the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite Tehran’s plans go down this path, Toby Cadman, international lawyer, co-founder of London-based Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers, said.
The lawyer explained that the ICC only had jurisdiction to investigate situations within the territory of state parties, which are the countries that have ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, or against citizens of state parties.
The third option would be if a state refers itself to the ICC in case the alleged crime passes a certain gravity threshold.
Moreover, the lawyer said that turning to the ICC should be a measure of last resort, which means it can only be done when all national legal instruments have been exhausted.
On Tuesday, Iran’s judicial spokesman, Gholam Hossein Ismaili, said Iran intended to hold the US government and armed forces accountable for the killing of Soleimani and bring the relevant case before the Hague-based court.
On Saturday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) acknowledged full responsibility for erroneously downing a Ukrainian Boeing 737 over Tehran. The Iranian air defence system had confused the passenger plane with a hostile cruise missile, and due to disrupted communication, the operator single-handedly decided to shoot it down, the IRGC explained.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed the United States for creating the current political dynamic in the region that had led to the tragedy. The downing of the plane happened on the same day when Iran launched missiles at two bases housing US troops in Iraq in retaliation for Soleimani’s assassination.
In early January, US President Donald Trump threatened to target Iranian cultural sites — which constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Convention — in the event Iran decided to retaliate against the United States for killing Soleimani. Later, however, he retreated from this threat.
On the night of January 3, the United States conducted a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport that killed Soleimani, a top general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and Iraqi Shiite militia leader Abu Mahdi Muhandis, among others. Washington considered both military leaders to be behind the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad on December 31.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
