A lawyer suing China in the International Criminal Court in The Hague over its creation and handling of the coronavirus says the court needs to see a new, secret report.
Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch has advised the ICC's office of the prosecutor of a 15-page report that contains "a very extensive array of important revelations about China's actions, inactions, and coverups."
Australia's Saturday Telegraph newspaper has published an excerpt from the report, explained Klayman.
"Therefore, we suggest that the ICC officially request a copy of the report – which has already been extensively discussed in public – from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, or New Zealand."
Previously, Klayman said ICC officials had informed him they were considering the complaint. At that time, Mark P. Dillon, head of the information and evidence unit of the ICC, cautioned Klayman in a letter that the acknowledgement does not mean an investigation has been opened or will be opened by the Office of the Prosecutor.
But Klayman said he's "confident that the International Criminal Court will proceed with a criminal investigation and indict the Chinese leadership."
"Their crimes against humanity over the COVID-19 pandemic are severe and mounting each minute. The world demands justice for the death and destruction they have caused and continue to cause," said Klayman, a former Justice Department prosecutor.
The Daily Telegraph of London reported the 15-page report says China suppressed and destroyed evidence of the outbreak in an "assault on international transparency."
The report states that Chinese officials, in "endangerment of other countries," covered up the outbreak.
"As intelligence agencies investigate whether the virus inadvertently leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, the team and its research led by scientist Shi Zhengli feature in the dossier prepared by Western governments that points to several studies they conducted as areas of concern," the Daily Telegraph reported.
"It cites their work discovering samples of coronavirus from a cave in the Yunnan province with striking genetic similarity to COVID-19, along with their research synthesising a bat-derived coronavirus that could not be treated."
But officials' denial that it could be passed human-to-human was "deadly," and doctors and scientists who had concerns were "disappearing."
The complaint names China, President Xi Jinping and others for allegedly developing the coronavirus and covering up its spread.
"The ruthless communist Chinese regime, which persecutes and terrorizes its own people, must be held to account," Klayman said when the complaint was filed.
He previously sued China in U.S. federal court to pay for coronavirus damages.
"It is a criminal regime, which arrogantly shrugs off its criminal responsibility by blaming the United States and the rest of the free world. I call on lawyers in nations around the world to join our effort to punish the guilty and have them thrown in prison where they belong," Klayman said. "I also call on all persons of good intentions to join or follow and support our class action suit in Dallas, Texas, and I am actively amassing a team of lawyers to make sure that China, and not the American taxpayer, pay the bill for the human suffering and death which this rogue communist 'terrorist state' has caused. I am also assisting lawyers in other nations globally to bring similar legal actions."
The criminal complaint requests "that the prosecutors office of the International Criminal Court open an investigation to determine the origins of the COVID-19 virus including its likely release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the defendants' willful interference with attempts to fight the spread of the disease and develop treatments, tests, and a vaccine and once the facts alleged herein are confirmed to conduct criminal war crimes prosecutions to and try, convict and sentence to life imprisonment the defendants herein."
The complaint was submitted "in the matter of crimes against humanity and genocide by development of outlawed biological warfare weapons by the People's Republic of China."
Along with China and Xi, the suit names members of the politburo, the People's Liberation Army, the Wuhan Institute, the institute's Shi Zhengli and Chen Wei of the army.
It alleges the defendants "failed to prevent the Wuhan Institute of Virology's personnel from becoming infected with the bioweapon and then carrying the virus out into the surrounding community."
Such actions violated a number of international treaties, the complaint contends, including the "Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons."
The complaint alleges "COVID-19 was designed by China to be a very 'effective' and catastrophic biological warfare weapon to kill mass populations."
"The investigation that the ICC should undertake includes considering that biological weapons are rarely completely unfamiliar designs, but frequently are created by finding deadly diseases existing in nature, then refining them to become more deadly," the complaint says.
The accusations include "recklessly and wantonly" creating "an unreasonable risk of death."
The defendants, the complaint says, "each and every one of them criminally acting in concert jointly and severally, by their wonton and irresponsible recklessness and negligence, the public release and spread of COVID-19 has caused the citizens of the United States and the world to suffer illness, death, medical expenses, economic disruption and damage, loss of employment and other great losses."