Dominic Raab has issued a war crimes warning to Russian military commanders involved in the invasion of Ukraine as he said UK prisons could be used to house people found to have broken international laws on conflicts.
The International Criminal Court last night announced it had opened a formal investigation in relation to Vladimir Putin’s attack on the country.
Mr Raab, the Justice Secretary, said it is ‘important to lay down a marker now and puncture the perception of impunity’ as he insisted the UK is ‘willing to step up and perform its role’ in the hunt for potential war criminals.
The Deputy Prime Minister warned any Russian commander who carries out an ‘illegal order’ could end up in the ‘dock of a court in The Hague and a jail cell’.
He also reportedly said that suspected war criminals could be held in UK prisons while Britain could also help with witness protection efforts.
A handful of war criminals have been jailed in British high-security prisons like HMP Belmarsh and HMP Wakefield in recent history.
Both are Category A prisons – the highest security category – with Belmarsh currently home to Julian Assange who is being held on remand while fighting extradition to America as well as Ali Harbi Ali, the man accused of killing the MP Sir David Amess.
Dominic Raab has issued a war crimes warning to Russian military commanders involved in the invasion of Ukraine
The International Criminal Court last night announced it had opened a formal investigation in relation to Vladimir Putin’s attack on the country
The ICC confirmed it had launched a probe after the UK and 37 allies referred Russia over what Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as ‘abhorrent’ attacks.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said he had actively begun an investigation into the war in Ukraine.
In a statement, he said: ‘I have notified the ICC Presidency a few moments ago of my decision to immediately proceed with active investigations in the situation. Our work in the collection of evidence has now commenced.’
Mr Raab told The Telegraph that Russian military commanders should be aware they could end up in The Hague if they act on an ‘illegal order’.
‘It is important to lay down a marker now and puncture the perception of impunity,’ he told the newspaper.
‘What we really want to do is get this message to Putin, but also any commander in the field who may be thinking about what he is going to do with an illegal order that may cause him to commit war crimes.
‘They need to know there is a very real chance that they will face the dock of a court in The Hague and a jail cell.
‘That’s why we will support the International Criminal Court (ICC), technically, but also in terms of any other ways.’
Mr Raab, who worked as a lawyer before entering politics and has a background in prosecuting war criminals, said the UK ‘would be willing to step up and perform its role – and the Ministry of Justice certainly would’.
The Justice Secretary told The Telegraph that Britain’s prisons could be used to house suspected war criminals.
He is said to have cited the case of notorious Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic who was transferred to a UK prison last year to serve the rest of his sentence for war crimes.
He was transferred to an unspecified UK prison from a UN detention centre in the Netherlands, where he had been held following his conviction for genocide and crimes against humanity.
In 2016, he was sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague to serve 40 years, later increased to life.
He was held responsible for the 1995 massacre of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica – regarded as one of the worst atrocities committed in Europe since the Second World War.
The UK is said to have volunteered to take Karadzic as part of efforts to support international justice. The Ministry of Justice did not provide details at the time of where he was being moved to for security reasons.
He is not the only war criminal to have been housed in a British prison in recent history.
Bosnian Serb war criminal Radislav Krstic, who was jailed by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague in 2001, was held at HMP Wakefield.
He was attacked by three of his fellow inmates in 2010 and was later transferred to a Polish jail.
Another former Bosnian Serb leader convicted of war crimes was also transferred to the UK.
Momcilo Krajisnik was jailed for the deportation, forcible transfer and persecution of Bosnian Muslim and Croats including women, children and elderly people during the 1990s Balkan conflict.
Former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic (right), was convicted of war crimes during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s
He was transferred to the UK in 2009 and reportedly served time in HMP Belmarsh but was granted early release in 2013 and died in September 2020.
Mr Raab’s comments came after Mr Johnson yesterday directly accused Russian forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine.
He told MPs in the House of Commons: ‘What we have seen already from Vladimir Putin’s regime in the use of the munitions that they have already been dropping on innocent civilians, in my view, already fully qualifies as a war crime.’
