This is the complex path to bring Putin to justice for the atrocities in Bucha

The gruesome images and stories coming from Ukrainian cities like Bucha after the withdrawal of the Russian troops they bear witness to an infamy on a scale reminiscent of acts of barbarism in Cambodia, the Balkans and World War II.

The question now is: What to do with this suffering?

After the Ukrainian authorities revealed the discovery of more than 400 civilian bodies, a chorus has formed at the highest levels of Western political power calling for accountability, prosecution and punishment. On Monday, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said these deaths were “genocide” and “war crimes””, and US President Joe Biden claimed that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is “a war criminal” who should be brought to justice.

But the road to holding Russia’s president and other high-ranking officials criminally accountable is long and complex.warn lawyers specializing in international law.

“Undoubtedly, the discovery of corpses showing signs of executions – such as gunshot wounds to the head – is solid evidence of war crimes.said Clint Williamson, who was the US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Affairs from 2006 to 2009.

“When victims are found with their hands tied, blindfolded and evidence of torture or sexual assault, it is an even more compelling case. These actions are not allowed under any circumstances, regardless of whether the victims are civilians or military personnel who were taken prisoner,” he said.

A community worker frees the dolls of a dead man with his hands tied behind his back in the city of Bucha, near kyiv, on April 3, 2022. (SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP)

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This article is part of an ongoing investigation by The Associated Press and Frontline that includes the War Crimes Watch Ukraine interactive experience and an upcoming documentary.

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There is no reason to believe that the Russians will admit to having committed war crimes. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that “not a single civilian has faced an act of violence from the Russian military forces.”and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the scenes outside kyiv an “orchestrated anti-Russian provocation.”

The International Criminal Courtwhich usually only prosecutes a handful of high-level perpetrators, has launched an investigation into the atrocities in Ukraine. Ukrainian prosecutors have launched miles of criminal investigations, and prosecutors from Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, France, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland have opened their own investigations. In addition, the number of calls for the creation of a special court to prosecute Russia for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.

To support a war crimes case, prosecutors must collect forensic and ballistic evidence, as they would in any murder case, to establish the cause and circumstances of the victims’ deaths.. You also need to show that the crime occurred in the context of an ongoing armed conflict, which is evident in the case of Ukraine.

To make a case for crimes against humanity, prosecutors must further demonstrate that the crimes were part of widespread and systematic attacks against civilians by, for example, show patterns of behavior about how people were killed in Bucha, Motyzhyn, Irpin and other towns.

Then comes the more difficult task of establishing who is responsible, using a chain of evidence to link crime scenes to high-ranking civilian or military leaders. Frequently the first link in that chain is knowing the good forces that were present when the atrocities were committed and under whose orders they acted.

“If one wants to investigate chains of command and perpetrators, it is important to analyze and collect information on where each unit is located”said Andreas Schüller, director of the International Crimes and Accountability Program at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. “One needs to link the evidence from the entire military apparatus. Documents could be leaked, or witnesses could speak out and reveal internal planning operations.”

That a process can be carried to its ultimate consequences —make Putin and other leaders to be held individually accountable for war crimes against humanity—it will be difficult, legal experts say.

“One must show that they knew or could have known or could have known”said Philippe Sands, a prominent British lawyer and professor at University College London. “There is a real risk that one will end up prosecuting mid-level people in three years, and that those primarily responsible for this horror —PutinLavrov, the defense minister, the intelligence people, military personnel, and the financiers who backed him — walk off the hook.”

It would be easier to catch Putin for the crime of aggression; that is, the act of waging a ruthless and unprovoked war against another country. But the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction over Russia for the crime of aggression since Russia, like the United States, does not belong to the ICC.

Bodies lie in a street in Bucha, northwest of kyiv, as Ukraine says Russian forces are making a “rapid withdrawal” from northern areas. (RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP). (RONALDO SCHEMIDT/)

In March, dozens of prominent lawyers and politicians, including Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, launched a campaign to create a special court to fill this legal loophole and prosecute Russia for the crime. of aggression against Ukraine.

Negotiations are underway on how to actually create such a court so that it has broad legitimacy, either through an international body such as the United Nations or under the auspices of various individual states. The Nuremberg Tribunal was created by the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, and France to hold Nazi leaders accountable after World War II.

Sands, the British lawyer, said that, whatever its legal weight, the images coming out of Ukraine strengthen the political will to hold Russia to account.

“You feel like something is stirring. And I think that’s how the law works. The law does not lead. The law follows, and follows the realities and the images and the stories, and that’s what makes things happen.” he stressed.

“The more horrendous the facts on the battlefield, the more calls I get about assault court,” he added. “Governments feel immense pressure to do something.”

But it may take a much bigger political shift to doom Putin in any meaningful way. The ICC does not allow trials in absentia, and even if a special court were formed to try Putin in absentia, holding a trial without the perpetrator present might sound hollow.

“I really find it hard to think that there is a plausible defense to the evidence we are seeing,” said Alex Batesmith, who served as United Nations prosecutor in Kosovo and Cambodia and is now a professor at the University of Leeds law school. “But there is no way that Putin will surrender to the ICC or be arrested and brought before the ICC without a large-scale intercontinental conflict breaking out or without a change in Russia’s domestic policy, which doesn’t look feasible.”

Source: Elcomercio