BERLIN —
German police said Saturday they were investigating several hundred potential
Russian war crimes in Ukraine including political and military officials
suspected of being linked to the alleged offences.
اضافة اعلان
“Up until now we
have received a three-digit number of leads,” Holger Muench, head of the BKA
federal police, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
The inquiry does
not only cover suspected perpetrators of war crimes but also political and
military officials, he said.
“It’s the most
difficult part of our inquiry, intricate puzzle work,” he added.
“Our clear goal is
to identify those responsible for atrocities, to prove their actions through
our investigations and bring them to justice,” including in Germany.
The country applies
universal jurisdiction which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes
against humanity, war crimes and genocide, regardless of where they were
committed.
However “that may
take time” because investigations linked to the Ukraine conflict are only at
their “very beginning”, Muench said.
The BKA is being
helped in its inquiries by Germany’s foreign intelligence service among others
which has for instance recorded the radio conversations of
Russian soldiers.
German
investigators could also be sent to Ukraine, Muench said, adding however that
they would need an international mandate to do so.
The UN’s Ukraine
commission on Wednesday confirmed receiving multiple allegations of rights
abuses by Russian forces, but said it was too early to say whether they
constituted war crimes.
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