UNITAD chief says there’s ‘excellent support’ from KRG on ISIS war crimes court

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The head of the United Nations’ investigative body on ISIS crimes says there is an “excellent support” from the Kurdistan Region’s government and its Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on legislation to establish a special criminal court on the crimes committed by the terrorist group.

In an interview with Saudi newspaper Sharq al-Awsat published Tuesday, the head of UN investigative team on ISIS crimes (known as UNITAD), Karim Khan, shed light on the progress it had made so far in gathering evidence of ISIS’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The remarks came after Khan on Monday told the UN Security Council that there was “clear and compelling evidence” that ISIS extremists committed genocide against the Yezidi minority in 2014. 

Part of UNITAD's mandate is to look for evidence that could be entered in war crimes cases in national courts. 

“There is excellent support from the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Prime Minister Masrour Barzani to pass a law” establishing a court in the autonomous region as well, Khan said.

In late April, Barzani explained his cabinet's approval of a bill to create a new court in the Kurdish capital to try those accused of a wide range of offenses committed on behalf of ISIS.

The draft bill passed the first reading in the Kurdistan Parliament last week, and it is expected to be approved by a majority vote in the next session after the end of Ramadan, Khadija Omar, a lawmaker in the legal parliamentary committee, told the official website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party on Wednesday.

Khan said he hoped that the establishment of the courts would assist UNITAD investigations and works on the crimes committed by ISIS. The investigator will take up the post chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court on June 15.

Editing by Joanne Stocker-Kelly