The European Parliament requested, through a resolution, the creation of a special international tribunal tasked with judging the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine, AFP reports, Agerpres reads.

„There is an urgent need for the Union and its member states, in close cooperation with Ukraine and the international community, preferably through the mediation of the United Nations, to press for the creation of a special international tribunal tasked with judging the crime of aggression against Ukraine committed by the political and military leaders of the Russian Federation and its allies”, the MEPs demand.

The resolution, which is not binding, was adopted with an overwhelming majority of 472 votes in favor (19 against and 33 abstentions).

„The creation of such a court would cover a big gap that the current international system has in the matter of international criminal justice,” the MEPs add.

„War criminals must be brought to justice. Now”, reacted on Twitter, after the vote, the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, in the context in which the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, is traveling to Kyiv on Thursday.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, already proposed at the end of November to work on the creation of such a court, and the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, called for a „new format” for her part, on Monday evening of the court.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), whose seat is in The Hague, has jurisdiction only to judge war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine, but not „crimes of aggression” by Russia, because Moscow and Kiev are not signatories of the The Treaty of Rome that established the tribunal.

Appreciating that the discussions for the creation of such a court for „crimes of aggression” could take time, the European Commissioner of Justice, Didier Reynders, said on Tuesday, in the plenary of the European Parliament, that it must be reflected, in a first phase, in the creation of a prosecutor’s office international for the collection of evidence.

Agerpres