ICC gets three more prisons

By Patrick Mathangani

There will be no more shortage of prisons to lock up those convicted by the International Criminal Court.

Three countries, Denmark, Finland and Belgium, Tuesday signed co-operation agreements with the ICC, providing incarceration facilities.

The three joined Austria and the United Kingdom, who committed to provide prison facilities in 2005 and 2007.

The agreements were signed at the first Rome Statue review conference going on in Kampala, Uganda.

The ICC president Sang-Hyung Song said the court’s operations and success is based on countries’ co-operation.

"It is, therefore, important to have a wide network of states (where suspects can be incarcerated)," said Mr Song.

He said the move means the ICC has now more than doubled the number of facilities available to detain and lock up suspects.

The court has no prison of its own, but runs a detention centre at a Dutch prison in Scheveningen, The Hague. The centre only holds suspects who are on trial and not those convicted.

An official representing Denmark, whose name was not immediately available, said: "Denmark is ready to provide detention facilities of the highest standards."

However, Finland will have to present the signed document to its Parliament for approval.

Without infrastructure of its own, the ICC depends mainly on the goodwill of countries to enforce arrests, investigation and incarceration of convicts.

Kenyan perpetrators of the 2008 post-election violence, which is being investigated by the ICC, could up end in any of these new prisons if convicted.