The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said Monday that his office is “actively monitoring” the situation in Venezuela following its disputed presidential election.
Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s long-time socialist leader, was declared the winner of the July 28 election over opposition challenger Edmundo González, giving him a third term.
Opposition leaders claim González was unfairly denied victory.
Since the election, Maduro’s supporters have detained over 2,000 people who protested or questioned his win, despite evidence suggesting he lost by a two-to-one margin.
The protests since the vote have left 24 people dead.
Khan’s office said it is closely watching the situation and has received multiple reports of violence and other issues. The office is working with Venezuelan officials to ensure the rule of law and to protect people from potential crimes as defined by the Rome Statute, the court’s founding treaty.
Maduro has urged Venezuelans to report election skeptics using a government app originally created for reporting power outages.
He also announced plans to upgrade two prisons to handle more detainees, announcing on state TV, “There will be no mercy,” according to The Associated Press.
The ICC is also investigating violence from Venezuela’s 2017 election but has not issued any arrest warrants. Khan’s office confirmed the investigation is ongoing and encouraged people to submit relevant information through an online portal.
“Should any individual or organization have information that may be relevant to this ongoing investigation, we would welcome you to submit this,” the prosecution statement said.
Some information for this report was provided by the Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
