The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, yesterday informed the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, that Spain will contribute 620,000 euros to this organization to finance investigations into the war in Ukraine.
Albares, in a telephone conversation with the prosecutor, specified that Spain will contribute 540,000 euros to the Trust Fund created ‘ad hoc’ by the ICC Prosecutor’s Office “to reinforce all the investigations which, at this moment, are focused on the war in Ukraine“, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release.
The Minister took advantage of the telephone conversation to detail that Spain will contribute nearly 80,000 euros to the Victims Trust Fund. These amounts are in addition to the Spanish contribution as a member of the Tribunal, which amounts to 6.184 million euros each year.
This additional disbursement by Spain to this fund comes after Albares made a commitment to increase financial support to the ICC at the United Nations General Assembly last September in New York, which now translates into this increase in the amount initially allocated.
The Spanish ambassador to the ICC, Consuelo Femenía, announced the Spanish contributions during the Assembly of member states of the international organization that closed yesterday in The Hague. On the occasion of this meeting, the representative of Spain signed a judicial cooperation agreement developing the procedure that allows those convicted by the ICC to serve sentences in Spanish territory.
“These efforts are in line with Spain’s objective to fight against impunity for crimes against the Ukrainian population,” states the communiqué of the department headed by Albares. Last November the minister went to Kiev accompanied by a team of forensic experts and experts from the National Police and the Civil Guard who will work on the investigations of the 1935 February, when they won 18 seats in the Grand National Assembly.
