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Igor
Strelkov being interviewed
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INTERNET
SOURCE: https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/kyiv-post-plus/former-separatist-leader-brags-of-executions-challenges-hague-court-406227.html
Former separatist leader
brags of executions, challenges Hague court
Jan. 20, 2016 12:18
A former Russian-backed separatist commander has
publicly boasted about ordering executions in eastern Ukraine and defiantly
claimed he will never be tried in an international court.
Igor Girkin, otherwise known as Igor Strelkov, led
separatist forces in Donetsk during some of the most intense fighting in the
conflict. He gained a reputation for ruthlessness among even his own men, and
he has been accused of involvement in the downing of flight MH17 in July 2014.
Rather than being shamed into silence, however, Girkin bragged about
ordering executions in an interview with Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda radio
station last week – inadvertently providing his first confession to possible
war crimes - and a very public one at that.
“We had a military court, and legislation from 1941
was introduced, legislation by Stalin,” Strelkov said.
“On the basis of that legislation, we tried
(people), held tribunals and carried out executions … In total, four people
were executed during my time in Sloviansk,” Strelkov said.
News of the executions first surfaced in early July 2014, after Strelkov
and his men surrendered Slovyansk to Ukrainian forces. Documents detailing the
executions were found at that time and published by the Mashable news agency,
though Girkin has never before commented on them. One of the men sentenced to
death had merely stolen some clothing from an abandoned neighbor’s home,
according to the Mashable report.
Soon after those documents came to light, Ukrainian authorities
uncovered a mass grave in the area, suggesting Strelkov may have been
responsible for more than just four executions.
Girkin is not the slightest bit concerned about being dragged to The
Hague, however.
“International law absolutely does not worry me,
because that is an instrument in the hands of the victors. If we are defeated,
well, that means they will use the law against me.”
Asked whether he was prepared to stand trial in The Hague for war
crimes, Strelkov said simply: “I’m deeply certain that
I won’t end up there.”
“I know too much, as they say in a famous film. And
second, I will try to do all that I can to ensure that doesn’t happen, on my
part,” he said.
But Jan Pieklo, the director of the Polish-Ukrainian Cooperation
Foundation, who helped to prepare a recent report detailing war crimes
committed in eastern Ukraine in the hopes of getting justice, said Girkin
shouldn’t be so certain.
Noting that Girkin believes he is “untouchable” because he is in
Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Pieklo said that he had previously worked as a war
correspondent during the war in Yugoslavia and seen firsthand as Serb leaders
displayed the same attitude as Girkin.
The feeling at that time, he said, was that “never ever would Slobodan
Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic be brought to justice.”
“But it happened, and Slobodan Milosevic himself was transported to The
Hague, and he died in prison,” he said.
“Maybe one day we could even see Vladimir Putin facing justice,” Pieklo
said. “It may be a long way off, it may take a long time, but it could happen.”
The Moscow branch of Human Rights Watch said "Russia can and should
investigate this," noting that the International Criminal Court was
currently considering whether a formal investigation into crimes committed in
eastern Ukraine was warranted under the Rome statute.
Scott Horton of the DLA Piper Global Law Firm declined to comment
specifically on Girkin, but said those commanding Girkin could end up facing
prosecution for his actions.
“A nation-state that fields an army, and that attracts and directs
irregular forces of any sort, has responsibility for enforcement of the law of
armed conflict over those forces. Non-enforcement of the laws of armed conflict
has possible consequences up the chain of command under the so-called doctrine of
command responsibility. If a command authority fails to apply the law of armed
conflict by prosecuting and punishing offenders, and if it fails to do this
systematically, then responsibility for the wrongdoing can be viewed as
transposed from the original offender to the command authority,” Horton told
the Kyiv Post.
“The cases turn heavily on the amount of evidence prosecutors are able
to build about the command relationship,” he said.
Girkin has identified himself as a colonel of Russia’s Federal Security
Service in numerous interviews, and a group of hackers released a tranche of
emails purporting to back up that claim in late 2014. Ukrainian authorities
have said Girkin is an officer of Russia’s GRU, the external military
intelligence directorate.
Girkin is arguably the most notorious of the separatist commanders,
having alienated even many of his own men during his time in Donetsk. Alexander
Zakharchenko, the current leader of separatist forces in Donetsk, accused
Girkin of recklessness in interviews with Russian media in late 2014,
complaining that Girkin had been prepared to obliterate entire residential
housing blocks for no reason whatsoever.
Shortly after the MH17 catastrophe in July 2014, Girkin was dismissed
from his post as commander “at his own request,” according to separatist
leadership. Many believed the Kremlin saw him as too much of a liability and
asked him to leave, however.
He quickly relocated to Moscow, claiming in interviews with the Russian
media that he was fulfilling a duty to protect Putin from enemies and traitors.
Human rights activists in Moscow had warned early on in the conflict
that the war in Ukraine was not Girkin’s first time committing war crimes. In
June 2014, the Memorial human rights group identified Girkin as the same man
who had been known for committing forced disappearances and presumed executions
of Chechens during the Second Chechen War in 2001-2002. Like many other crimes
from the Second Chechen War, however, those murders were never solved.
Girkin’s press secretary did not respond to an inquiry on why the
notorious separatist leader decided to confess to war crimes now, nor on
whether he was concerned that although he “knows too much” to face trial, he
might simply be killed for that very same reason.
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Pro-Russian
separatist commander Igor Girkin with his Stechkin APS Pistol.
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INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-girkin-strelkov-executions-stalin-era/27497491.html
January
19, 2016
Former Commander Of Pro-Russian Separatists Says He Executed People Based On Stalin-Era Laws
For
most of his 42-minute appearance on a radio talk show, former Russia-backed
separatist commander Igor Girkin sounded like nothing more than a fanatic
discussing a dream now widely dismissed as fantasy.
He spoke of hopes for the creation of a "Novorossia" -- a New Russia stretching across much of Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Odesa, and one day joining a Russian empire including all of Belarus and Ukraine.
It wasn't until the last minute that the interview with Girkin went from surreal to chilling.
Referring to his time commanding separatists in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk in 2014, a host asks him how he stopped the rampant looting.
"With executions," Girkin said matter-of-factly.
According to Girkin, separatist "authorities" installed a military court and introduced 1941 military laws implemented by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
"Under this legislation we tried people and executed the convicted," Girkin said.
"While I was in Slovyansk four people were executed. Two among the military for looting, one local for looting, and one for killing a serviceman," he said on the Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda, which is affiliated with a leading pro-Kremlin Russian tabloid.
One of the people killed was an "ideological" supporter of the Ukrainian nationalist group Right Sector, he said.
Key Separatist Commander
Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, was a key commander in the Russia-backed separatist forces in the early stages of the war against Ukrainian government troops that has killed more than 9,000 civilians and combatants since April 2014.
Ukraine's government has called Girkin a Russian agent and accused him of war crimes. He resigned as a rebel commander in August 2014 amid reports that he had been wounded in battle.
Later that year, he told an interviewer that he was a colonel in the Russian FSB, or Federal Security Service -- a statement that was edited out of the interview published by state-run Rossia Segodnya.
In October 2015, the Brussels-based International Partnership for Human Rights provided the International Criminal Court with more than 300 testimonies about alleged military crimes and crimes against humanity that it said had been committed by Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine.
It said that "while crimes committed by both sides of the conflict have been documented, the collected evidence primarily concerns crimes committed by separatists because of security issues related to accessing separatists-controlled territories of Ukraine."
In the radio appearance, Girkin said he was not concerned about the possibility of international prosecution.
"I am not at all bothered by international law, because it's a tool in the hands of winners," he said. "If we are defeated, well then, the norms of these laws will be applied to me."
Fighting has lessened since a February 2015 deal on a cease-fire and steps toward peace, but the Russia-backed separatists still hold large parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
Girkin, a former military reenactor, appeared to have the support of both the hosts and those calling in.
"God forbid," one host said, referring to the possibility of Girkin being sent to an international court for prosecution on war crimes charges.
As
for his feelings about Stalin, Girkin said he dislikes the dictator as he was
in his younger days, but believes that he was a great statesman at the end of
his life.
"You can discuss for a long time how much blood and where Stalin spilled it, but at least you can confidently say that he did it not for himself but for the sake of an idea," he said.
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Look-alike
of Igor Strelkov – Grandson of legendary Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov,
Alexander Arkadyevich Suvorov
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://allrus.me/russian-officer-igor-strelkov/]
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