International bar group wants Mugabe indicted before ICC News
International bar group wants Mugabe indicted before ICC

[JURIST] An international bar group called Friday for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to be indicted before the new International Criminal Court in the Hague for murder, rape, abduction, enslavement and other rights atrocities committed by his regime. The International Bar Association, an umbrella group of 16,000 members from hundreds of lawyers' associations around the world, made the call in a special supplement published in South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper and Zimbabwe's weekend Independent. Zimbabwe is not currently signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC but the IBA hopes that a post-Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe might sign on and indict Mugabe at that point. As previously reported in JURIST's Paper Chase, just yesterday another group of bar leaders from Europe, Africa and the Pacific condemned Mugabe for having "subverted" and "profoundly compromised" Zimbabwe's legal and judicial system. Also yesterday, Zimbabwe's parliament passed legislation making it illegal for foreign-funded human rights groups to operate in the coutry, a move which the IBA condemned as showing "utter contempt for human rights" on the eve of International Human Rights Day. Read the IBA press release on its report here, and the full supplement here [PDF]. AP has more.