“We shot the man on the bike”: Germany intercepts Russian soldiers talking about the Bucha massacre

The German secret services, Bnd, intercepted a radio conversation between Russian soldiers in which they talk about the massacre of civilians in the town of Buchawhose horror scenes shook the world, and which are denied by the Kremlin.

In one of the conversations, revealed on the website of the German magazine Der Spiegel, the soldiers admit to shooting a passing civilian on a bicycle. The photo of the dejected man next to his bicycle He went around the world the day the massacre of civilians committed by Russian troops in that city northwest of kyiv was discovered.

Among the dialogues intercepted by the Bnd, he affirms spiegelthere was the one of a soldier who told another that he and others had shot the man who was passing by on a bicycle.

A man shot in the head next to his bicycle, in Bucha. (IVOR PRICKETT – NYTNS).

In another of the intercepted dialogues, an officer detailed the method to follow when capturing Ukrainian soldiers: first the soldiers are interrogated, then they are shot.

Meanwhile, two former German ministers launched a criminal lawsuit to have President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials investigated for war crimes in Ukraine.

Former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and former Interior Minister Gerhart Baum said they want to use German laws allowing the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad to bring people they believe to be responsible for heinous crimes in Ukraine to justice. .

The application in Germany of the rule of “universal jurisdiction” allowed the conviction of a senior Syrian official for crimes against humanity in early 2021.

The Syrian military Eyad al-Gharib, during the trial in Germany. (THOMAS LOHNES – AFP).

Lawyer Nikolaos Gazeas, who compiled the 140-page criminal complaint on his behalf, said it targets not only Putin and the 32 members of his security council but also “a whole series of members of the Russian armed forces.”

The crimes detailed in the lawsuit include the attack on a nuclear plant and the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, it added.

Gazeas said the federal prosecutor’s office can use information obtained by intelligence agencies to decide if the case has merit. The lawyer quoted the weekly report Der Spiegel.

Prosecutors from the International Criminal Court have also launched an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine, and Gazeas said parallel investigations in multiple jurisdictions are logical and can be mutually reinforcing.

“In this situation, the law is a weapon and we want to use it,” Baum said.

ANSA and AP Agencies

Source: Elcomercio