Czech Republic calls for 'special international tribunal' for war crimes
The Czech Republic, who currently hold the EU presidency, have called for a “special international tribunal” after a mass grave was discovered in Izium, a town in north-eastern Ukraine.
More than 440 bodies have been discovered by Ukrainian officials, with some found with their hands tied behind their backs.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy invoked the names of other Ukrainian cities where authorities said retreating Russian troops left behind mass graves of civilians, Associated Press reported.
“Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Izium,” Ukraine’s president said. “Russia leaves death everywhere. And it must be held accountable for it.”
In a series of tweets on Saturday, Jan Lipavský, the Czech Republic’s minister of foreign affairs said:
Russia left behind mass graves of hundreds of shot and tortured people in the Izyum area. In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent. We must not overlook it. We stand for the punishment of all war criminals. #StandwithUkraineI call for the speedy establishment of a special international tribunal that will prosecute the crime of aggression.
Russia left behind mass graves of hundreds of shot and tortured people in the Izyum area. In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent. We must not overlook it. We stand for the punishment of all war criminals. #StandwithUkraine— Jan Lipavský (@JanLipavsky) September 17, 2022
I call for the speedy establishment of a special international tribunal that will prosecute the crime of aggression.— Jan Lipavský (@JanLipavsky) September 17, 2022
- The Security Service of Ukraine said that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSU) oficcers tortured residents in the Kupiansk, a city in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
The Kyiv Independent reports that when FSU officers were in then-occupied Kupiansk, they tortured residents and threatened to send them to minefields and kill their families.
“For 40 minutes, they had been using a stun gun on me, then they shot at me with either an airgun or a gas gun, I don’t know – I was in a bag,” the Kyiv Independent reported one victim saying.