Portugal is to take part in the creation of a special tribunal for the hearing of war crimes in Ukraine.
The “very important development” has been announced in parliament by foreign affairs minister Paulo Rangel, who stressed Portugal’s ‘complete participation’ in the project.
It is a decision that came from the informal council of European heads of diplomacy who converged on Bucha yesterday, the Ukrainian city that suffered a massacre in the very early days of the Russian invasion.
Mr Rangel was not actually at the council. His place was taken by secretary of state for foreign affairs Inês Domingos.
The Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (STCAU) is an ad hoc international criminal tribuñal aimed at prosecuting individuals responsible for the Russian invasions of Ukraine under the legal concept of crimes of aggression – as a complement to the existing International Criminal Court investigation in Ukraine.
An agreement between the Council of Europe and Ukraine was signed on June 25 last year, in Strasbourg, setting out the conditions for establishing the tribunal, which can only be established once member states have provided legally binding guarantees of politcal and financial support.
Source material: LUSA/ Wikipedia
