{"id":30892,"date":"2023-07-18T20:07:07","date_gmt":"2023-07-18T20:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/?p=30892"},"modified":"2023-07-18T20:21:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T20:21:21","slug":"botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals","title":{"rendered":"Botswana to prosecute war criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. <\/strong><\/span><b>As wars rage across the world, claiming innocent lives from Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, the Government has taken steps to recognize that, \u2018A war crime committed elsewhere is a war crime committed in Botswana.\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Through a Serious Crimes of International Concern Bill of 2023 that is waiting for final stages before being passed into law, the Ministry of Justice has taken bold steps to extradite, or prosecute people suspected of involvement in war crimes on behalf of other countries.<\/p>\n<p>It also seeks to make it easy to handover proceeds of crimes suspected to originate in foreign countries, as well as recognise a crime of aggression among other crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Once made into a law, it would facilitate Botswana law enforcement agencies to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in carrying out joint investigations with any other foreign law enforcement agency in the interest of national security.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn this regard, the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act was also amended to facilitate the provision and obtaining by Botswana of international assistance in joint criminal investigation of an offence, i.e., investigation of an offence conducted by Botswana and foreign counterparts,\u201d reads part of the Bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn this regard, the Amendment of the Extradition Act provides for instances where Botswana is unable to extradite, for DPP to instead prosecute on behalf of the foreign country where it is determined that there is enough evidence to prosecute, and the sharing of suspected proceeds of crime and confiscated property with other countries,\u201d reads the Bill.<\/p>\n<p>The amendment of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act (MACMA) will empower the DPP to enter into agreement for reciprocal sharing of property with a competent authority in a foreign land.<\/p>\n<p>The law will also empower the police to enter into agreements with their foreign counterparts for investigations, sharing of information and intelligence and even conduct joint operations in the interest of National Security.<\/p>\n<p>The new law will also make the Extradition process simple and quicker, unlike the present arrangement which is cumbersome and time consuming.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Minister of Justice, Machana Shamukuni, the new law seeks to ensure that Botswana, as a State Party, \u201cConforms to and implements her obligations as set out under the Rome Statute of the international Criminal Court, in as far as such conditions do not conflict with Botswana\u2019s Constitution\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Once in operation, the law will recognize genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression. \u201cA person who conspires in Botswana to commit an offence, in or outside the territory of Botswana, or who conspires outside Botswana to commit a crime in Botswana commits an offence and is liable to the same penalty for the actual offence\u201d reads Section 8 of the Bill.<\/p>\n<p>The new law will make it impossible for the aforementioned crimes to be subjected to the Prescriptions Act, meaning there is no timeframe within which a person can be tried for their crimes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\">Botswana<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. As wars rage across the world, claiming innocent lives from Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, the Government has taken steps to recognize that, \u2018A war crime committed elsewhere is a war crime committed in Botswana.\u2019 Through a Serious Crimes of International Concern Bill of 2023 that is waiting for final stages before being [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":30891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-30892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Botswana to prosecute war criminals - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As wars rage across the world, claiming innocent lives from Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, the Government has taken step ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Botswana to prosecute war criminals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As wars rage across the world, claiming innocent lives from Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, the Government has taken step ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-07-18T20:07:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-07-18T20:21:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/07\/sm_1689694012.13107.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"751\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Botswana to prosecute war criminals\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-07-18T20:07:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-07-18T20:21:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals\"},\"wordCount\":501,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/07\/sm_1689694012.13107.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-to-prosecute-war-criminals\",\"name\":\"Botswana to prosecute war criminals - 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