Dutch to send more investigators for ICC Ukraine probe

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The Netherlands said Monday it will send three more teams of investigators to Ukraine to support an International Criminal Court probe into war crimes since the Russian invasion.

The missions, set for late 2022 and for next year, follow the deployment to Ukraine in May of several Dutch investigators as part of the ICC's largest such deployment in its history.

"We remain fully committed to justice for war crimes in Ukraine," Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra tweeted.

"That is why the Netherlands will send three new forensic teams in the near future to support the Ukrainians and the International Criminal Court in their investigation."

The investigators will be working "under the flag of the ICC", which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands, the Dutch foreign, defence and justice ministries said in a joint letter to parliament.

The teams from the Dutch military police will deploy in "autumn 2022 and, if the situation permits, in the spring of 2023 and again in the autumn of 2023", it said.

The ICC announced a full investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity just days after the February 24 Russian invasion.

The court then deployed a 42-member team to Ukraine in May including a "significant number of Dutch national experts".

The court has so far declined to say when it expects to file its first charges over Ukraine.

In June the Netherlands said it had stopped a Russian military intelligence agent posing as a Brazilian intern from infiltrating the ICC.