Rights defenders to gather testimonies of South-Ossetian residents for Hague Court

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has stepped up the work on crimes that might be committed against the civilian population of South Ossetia in August 2008. In six months, representatives of The Hague Court are going to go to Tskhinvali. This was reported by the organization "Legal Initiative". Its members plan to gather testimonies of the affected residents of South Ossetia and transfer them to The Hague.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on October 8, 2015, Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, appealed to the Court for permission to conduct investigation into the conflict in South Ossetia. She suspects the authorities of South Ossetia of organizing ethnic cleansing against the Georgian population.

The attention of The Hague Court is focused on Russia and Georgia, and South Ossetia has remained actually uncovered. The human rights organization "Legal Initiative" intends to eliminate the above gap by gathering testimonies of the affected residents of South Ossetia and transferring them to staff members of the ICC, whose visit to Tskhinvali will take place no earlier than in six months, the "Kommersant" reports.

According to Grigor Avetisyan, a lawyer of the "Legal Initiative", his organization provided residents of South Ossetia with assistance in filing claims to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), while copies of the complaints were sent to the ICC; however, that was not enough.

Georgia demonstrates its scepticism about The Hague Court's intentions, the "Kommersant" reports. Thus, Elena Tevdoradze, the former Deputy Chairman of the PACE Monitoring Committee on Georgia, has stated that the ICC "has expressed its reaction to the events of 2008 with a several-year delay."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.