ICC monitoring Boko Haram crisis - Chief Prosecutor

THE Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Mrs Fatou Bensounda, has revealed that the court was monitoring the Boko Haram insurgence in the country and the effort by the Federal Government to tackle the menace. Speaking to State House correspondents in Abuja after conferring with President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday, she said she had briefed the president on the preliminary examinations that had been done by her office concerning Boko Haram and what she described as the trouble in the middle belt area in the past four to five years.Bensounda, who said she was in the State House to thank Nigeria for all the cooperation it had extended to the court, noted that though the sect's activities might be regarded as terrorism, they also qualify as crimes against humanity.She, however, emphasised that the ICC did not hope to intervene in the crisis since the Federal Government was already handling it.According the Chief Prosecutor, 'We are happy that at the moment, Nigeria is also taking steps to address these crimes. As you know, these crimes may be called terrorits attacks but they could also qualify as crimes against humanity and the ICC is not court of such instance. It is a court of last resort.'As long as the Nigerian government is taking steps to address these crimes, the ICC will not intervene. And I want to emphasise that ICC is not investigating these crimes yet. Nigeria's situation is just under preliminary examination and if we see, by monitoring these crimes, that the Nigerian government is addressing them, there will be no need for ICC's intervention. 'And the intention is not to intervene but to ensure that Nigeria, which has the primary responsibility of investigating and prosecuting, is actually doing that. In which case, we only will need to observe that those proceedings are genuine proceedings which is the next phase but we have not gone to that stage yet.
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