The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Thursday (June 15) that he would conduct a preliminary examination into alleged crimes by “armed forces and groups” in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Kinshasa accuses the March 23 Movement (M23), a former predominantly Tutsi rebellion which took up arms at the end of 2021, of attacks in the province of North Kivu, in the east of the country.
The DRC had already seized the court in 2004, which opened an investigation and pronounced three final convictions. But Kinshasa again seized the court, asking it to open an investigation into alleged crimes committed “from January 1, 2022 to date”, said its prosecutor Karim Khan.
The ICC prosecutor, who sits in The Hague, said in a statement that he “intends to carry out a preliminary examination urgently”. He clarified that this step will assess “whether the two situations returned by the DRC government are sufficiently related to constitute one and the same situation”.
A preliminary examination is generally used by the Court, created in 2002 to judge the worst atrocities committed in the world, to determine whether the criteria imposed for the opening of an investigation are met. Karim Khan visited the DRC at the end of May, particularly in the east of the country plagued by violence from multiple armed groups, many inherited from the wars of the 1990s-2000s. Rwanda’s support for the M23 rebels has been documented by UN experts but remains contested by Kigali.
