From Reuters:
“Ukraine says it identified
511 war crime suspects, convicted 81”
Ukraine has identified 511 people
suspected of war crimes since Russia's Feb. 2022 invasion and has already
handed down 81 convictions, its prosecutor general said in Kyiv on Thursday.
Andriy Kostin was speaking at a war crimes conference alongside the chief
prosecutors of Poland, Lithuania, Romania and the President of the EU justice
arm, Eurojust.At a press conference after their meeting, the prosecutors
announced the signing of a two-year extension to the work of the Joint
Investigation Team, an initiative by five European Union countries to probe war
crimes in the conflict. Russia has denied its troops commit war crimes, despite
the conflict having killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians.
The JIT is conducting what
Eurojust chief Ladislav Harman called the “biggest investigation of war crimes
in history.” Lithuanian Prosecutor General Nida Grunskiene said the JIT had so
far spoken to over 5,000 Ukrainians as part of their investigations. Commenting
on the 81 convictions, Kostin acknowledged that most had been conducted without
the suspects in custody. He said Ukraine wanted to get justice as quickly as
possible instead of waiting until the end of the war. “Most of these
convictions are in absentia, but it speaks to the fact that we are securing
justice right now,” he said.
Kostin added that discussions
were taking place with more than 40 countries about the possibility of forming
a war crimes tribunal. He indicated that a decision on the format of the panel
this year would be “a powerful signal”, but did not say more about when it
could start. He said such a tribunal was likely to last several years once it
began. Kostin and Grunskiene said investigators had managed to establish the
identities of three people, all pro-Russian militants from the Donetsk region,
suspected of killing Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius in the city
of Mariupol. Kvedaravicius’ death was announced by Ukraine’s defence ministry
in April 2022. Kostin on Thursday said the film director had died as a result
of torture inflicted by the three suspects, including broken bones, knife
wounds and a mock execution. The director was filming a documentary showing the
suffering of Mariupol’s residents during a brutal, months-long siege of the
city by advancing Russian forces. The documentary, Mariupolis 2, was released
several months after his death.
^ Ukraine continues to surprise
and impress me. Not only do they continue to fight Russia, but they are also
working to bring justice to the Victims. ^
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