Investigative group on war crimes in Ukraine will also investigate genocide, - Prosecutor General’s Office
It happened in Vilnius after a working meeting, the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office reports, Censor.NET reports.
"International cooperation in the investigation and prosecution of genocide is reaching a new level. We are joining forces with partners to investigate this "crime of crimes". The agreement will facilitate the exchange of evidence and information, and the work of the JIT will be strengthened by international experts," Andriy Kostin said.
He noted that from the first days of the full-scale invasion, it became obvious that the mass and systematic nature of the war crimes committed in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine bore the hallmarks of a campaign to persecute Ukrainians as a national group.
Murders of civilians, torture, sexual violence, looting, destruction of civilian objects... These terrible attributes of the Russian occupation were found in every city and village liberated from the occupiers. More than 19,000 cases of forced deportation of children have been recorded.
"Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, we have seen a system in the war crimes of the Russian Federation. Currently, in our investigations, we are checking two main aspects: whether individual war crimes have signs of genocide and whether the revealed patterns indicate a planned policy of genocide," the Prosecutor General emphasized.
"Our joint action to ensure rapid and effective law enforcement coordination and interoperability is much more than a practical, logistical step. It is a signal to the world that those responsible for this military invasion will not weaken our shared commitment to a free and democratic society", - emphasized the Prosecutor General of Lithuania Nida Grunskene.
During the two-day coordination meeting in Vilnius, the participants discussed the progress of the investigations, their directions and consulted on important decisions in the activities of the JIT. And also the possibility of joining the JIT of Europol.
The head of the delegation of the US Department of Justice, the chief prosecutor of the Department of Criminal Investigation, Kenneth A. Polit, informed the participants of the meeting about the decision of the Ministry of Justice to delegate a prosecutor of the US Department of Justice to the International Center for the Prosecution of Crimes of Aggression, which will become operational in The Hague in the summer.
"The war in Ukraine shocked us and forced us to act. To act urgently, using all the best available experience of Eurojust cooperation, finding the most effective solutions and without hesitation giving up everything that stands in the way of quickly and successfully achieving the goal. And we all have the same goal - to identify , prosecution and justice for crimes committed in Ukraine", Margarita Shniutite-Daugelene summarized the role of Eurojust in the work of members of this group.
JIT includes Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Romania. Its participants are Eurojust and, for the first time in its history, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Also, in March 2023, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the US Department of Justice and JIT member countries.
