No asylum for Congolese ICC witnesses, who, however, cannot be returned either

Amsterdam ,

The district court of Amsterdam has ruled that the State Secretary of the department of security and justice rightly refused to grant asylum to three Congolese men who were witnesses at the International Criminal court (ICC) in The Hague. In 2011 the three men came to the Netherlands to give evidence in the case The Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui. After that, the three men submitted applications for asylum to the Dutch authorities. The State Secretary refused to grant them asylum: he thought it likely that the men were involved in crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The court has followed that argument, but it has also ruled that the three witnesses cannot be returned to the DRC: the court considers it a real risk that they will be detained in the DRC and not be given a fair trial. There are also insufficient guarantees that they will not be sentenced to death.

Resource: district court Amsterdam

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