The US Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of charging four Russian soldiers with war crimes against an American living in Ukraine, who was allegedly savagely beaten, tortured and subjected to a mock execution.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday that these were the first charges brought under a little-known 1996 federal law that allows the United States to prosecute people who commit war crimes against Americans abroad.
“Just as the world has witnessed the horrors of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, so has the United States Department of Justice,” Garland said at a news conference.
The victim, who was not identified, was kidnapped from her home in the village of Mylove in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine in April 2022 and held captive by the Russians for 10 days, according to a nine-year indictment. pages revealed in Virginia federal court. and reviewed by The Post.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday announced war crimes charges against four Russian soldiers accused of torturing a U.S. citizen in Ukraine. MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
During his ordeal, the American was stripped naked and photographed, punched, kicked and crushed with the butt of a gun.
According to the indictment, he was also forced to endure interrogations and a mock execution, in which they put a gun to the back of his head, then moved it slightly and fired, with the bullet whistling just above his head, according to the indictment.
The detainee was threatened with death repeatedly, and was even asked for his last words.
One of his captors also threatened to rape the American and “touched him in a sexual manner” by kissing him on the cheek and rubbing his ear.
“Over and over again he thought he was going to die,” Garland said.
The American was kidnapped in the Kherson region, repeatedly beaten, threatened with death and subjected to a mock execution (file photo) REUTERS Russia has denied committing war crimes and attacking civilians in Ukraine. AFP via Getty Images
The American, who had been living in Ukraine since 2021, was not fighting in the war against Russia and was a protected person under the 1949 Geneva Convention, according to the indictment.
The defendants were identified as commanding officers Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan, 45, and Dmitry Budnik, and two lower-level soldiers identified in the indictment only by their given names, Valerii and Nazar.
The four Russians were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit war crimes and three counts of war crimes: unlawful confinement of a protected person, torture and inhuman treatment.
Prosecutors said the suspects were members of the Russian military or military units from the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, a region in eastern Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed.
The defendants are not in custody and are unlikely to appear in the United States to face charges.
FBI Director Christopher Wray accused Russia of weaponizing human rights abuses during the war. MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Garland, however, described the indictment as an “important step toward accountability for the Russian regime’s illegal war in Ukraine.”
The indictment was the culmination of a year-long investigation by the Justice Department’s war crimes team that was formed to examine reports of atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
Federal investigators traveled to Europe in August 2022 to interview the victim, who had been evacuated from Ukraine after his release from captivity.
With postal cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn