Irina Venediktova, Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, meets a group of journalists amid bombed-out housing and rubble in the city of Borodyanka in the Kiev region.
Venediktova is responsible for prosecuting nearly 2,000 war crimes cases committed by Russian occupation forces at home and abroad. His office is the only body in Ukraine that has the ability to investigate. His office collects information on war crimes, conducts investigations and opens cases in national and international affairs. A trip by President Volodymyr Zelensky to the newly liberated territories outside Kiev, Venediktova walks with Borodyanka’s team to test the damage, wearing a military bulletproof vest and a baseball cap.
“I witnessed the exhumation of corpses in Bucha,” explains Venediktova, who took office in 2019 and now describes one of the mass graves being investigated as a war crime.
Investigating war crimes is difficult. It involves the participation of multidisciplinary teams that can collect and analyze physical, oral, and source evidence that can support a claim. International criminal law prosecutes perpetrators of war crimes and not states, so prosecutors must link the crime to the perpetrator.
“Before the war, most Ukrainians did not trust the state,” Venediktova said. The reason for this was: the Attorneys General that the country had in the past and the rules of their action. The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine has been criticized for corruption and inefficiency since the country declared independence.
There have been almost no major trials in the last 30 years, since dozens of protesters were shot dead in central Kiev in February 2014, two prominent Ukrainian journalists were assassinated, Ukraine’s third president was poisoned, and numerous cases of corruption and statehood were reported. Bribery was not followed by conviction.
Ukrainian NGOs, officials and civilians involved in gathering evidence to build the case hope that this time things will be different because of how the war has engulfed society as a whole. However, the question remains whether war is a factor that could change the discredited and opaque judiciary in Ukraine if civil society has to put pressure on it to do so.
“Some people think we will have more of the same this time. I have my doubts too,” said Svitlana Shevchenko, director of the Kyiv Region Administrative Court, during a trip to Borodyanka. “But I don’t even want to think about it.”
On the second day of the war, legal experts, judges from the Kyiv region and court staff set up the Telegram Chat, where they began uploading videos of alleged war crimes from across the region, making sure the metadata was preserved.
Shevchenko explains that in Boradyanka, 25 of the 28 judges, clerks and court clerks lost their homes. “These are statistics that we need to keep in mind,” he said.
Borodianka’s court director Henadi Stasenko was clearly shaken, as he showed Guardian Demolished and completely covered in ash court building. Went to where his office was. They now plan to present the extensive evidence they have jointly collected on the war crimes website set up by the Attorney General.
Truth Hounds, a non-governmental organization, has also been involved in the construction of war crimes cases, having received training from former International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors to gather testimonies that may be considered admissible. Truth Hounds began documenting war crimes in 2014 in eastern Ukraine. Now he is trying to train more staff to expand the team of researchers.
“After the appointment [de Venediktova]”Many of the prosecutors who were fired as part of the reform process have been re-hired,” said Jaropolk Brinich, a member of Truth Hounds’s management team that was involved in clearing prosecutors’ interviews and dismissals. “He had a loyal team.
“But I hope the war will change that behavior. There is no other way,” said Brinich, who spoke from the town of Stara Basan, 100 kilometers west of Kiev, where he had gone to talk to locals who told him he was a neighbor. He was shot by Russian forces for looking out the window, while two others were taken to a neighboring town and shot. “After the war, can you imagine the level of radicalization of the society, what demands will be made on the government?”
Truth Hounds argues that its goal is to assist at least ten foreign countries in prosecuting war crimes committed by Russia, including in Asia and Latin America. Other countries may initiate their own criminal cases if their citizens were victims or if they are hosting Ukrainian refugees who have become victims of war crimes.
Wayne Jorda, a lawyer whose firm is almost the only one working on war crimes in Ukraine since 2014, notes that Venediktova is the first attorney general with whom his firm has had direct contact. “It was the kind of practical approach that was needed,” Jorda said. “Because you know if the Ukrainian judiciary works, there are many different actors, and if they are not coordinated from the top down, it is difficult to investigate the case.”
According to Jordashi, both inside and outside Ukraine, it is recognized that the scale of events requires the support of prosecutors. In this regard, he notes that it is planned to create mobile judicial groups consisting of foreign experts, which will reflect the work of Ukrainian investigators in gathering evidence on the ground.
Venediktova also set up an International Advisory Board for the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, which includes prominent international criminal lawyers such as Amal Clooney (an Anglo-Lebanese lawyer specializing in human rights).
“The international response to the war in Ukraine is unprecedented,” said Anna Neistat Clooney Foundation for JusticeThe organization has announced that it will also conduct its own investigation into war crimes in Ukraine. Neistat noted that the ICC launched an investigation a few days after the invasion, after 39 countries supported Ukraine’s request.
“Every day we hear about new countries opening lawsuits under universal or extraterritorial jurisdiction,” Neistat said. “More than a dozen countries have already launched their own investigations into Russia’s war crimes.
Russia does not recognize the International Criminal Court and is unlikely to participate in proceedings in other jurisdictions. However, as Neistat points out, there is a possibility that other countries will extradite defendants who will leave Russia in the future and who are on the Interpol red list or on trial charges.
Venediktova explains that in the first days of the war he and the European Court set up a joint investigation team and that the first delegation of dozens of experts from France would arrive on Monday. “We feel we have real support.”
“I’m not working to get it Like “On Facebook,” Venediktova said. “I show Ukraine and the international community the work of our entire police system. The priority is to get the job done. “Ukrainians will be able to judge me when they finish the case.”
Translated by Emma Reverter
Source: El Diario
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
