Moscow Slams ICC Prosecutor for Requesting Arrest Warrants of S. Ossetian Officials

Russian Foreign Ministry (MID) Spokesperson Maria Zakharova has slammed the International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan for requesting arrest warrants of three de facto South Ossetian officials over alleged war crimes during and in the aftermath of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war.

In a statement late on March 22, Zakharova claimed the Prosecutor “has decided  to contribute to the anti-Russia hysteria that is raging in the United States, the EU and the bodies they are controlling.”

“The time chosen to issue arrest warrants and the choice of the parties accused has shown clearly that the ICC has always been and remains an obedient tool of the West,” she further claimed.

The MID official also reiterated Moscow’s official line that “the regime of [then-Georgian President] attacked peaceful Tskhinvali and Russian peacekeepers” during the Russo-Georgian war. She claimed ICC has “remained indifferent” to the “numerous complaints from the civilian victims of that attack.”

The MID Spokesperson further slammed the ICC Prosecutor for requesting the warrants fourteen years after the war.

She also noted that Russia is not obliged to cooperate with the court, as it is not part of the Rome Statute. The Hague-based court “has no jurisdiction” over Russian-occupied Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia, Zakharova added.

In the press statement, the MID official also slammed the ICC Prosecutor’s decision to open a probe into alleged war crimes taking place in Ukraine amid Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The prosecutor of The Hague-based court, Karim Khan filed on March 10 an application for warrants of arrest of three de facto S. Ossetian officials with reasonable grounds to believe that they bear criminal responsibility for the war crimes committed in and around S. Ossetia, during August 8-27, 2008.

These officials are Lt.-Gen. Mikhail Mindzaev, de facto interior minister in 2005-2008; Hamlet Guchmazov, former head of the preliminary detention facility of the de facto interior ministry, and David Sanakoev, current lawmaker and former presidential representative for human rights in S. Ossetia.

According to the ICC prosecutor, the three men bear criminal responsibility over unlawful confinement, torture, inhuman treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, hostage taking, and unlawful transfer.

Karim Khan also stated that the investigation further uncovered the alleged role of Vyacheslav Borisov, then Major General in the Russian Armed Forces and Deputy Commander of the Airborne Forces, “who is believed to have intentionally contributed to the execution of some of these crimes, and is now deceased.”

The investigation began in 2016, when ICC Judges authorized then-Prosecutor Fatou Besnouda to launch a probe into alleged crimes committed in the lead up to, during, and after the August 2008 war in Georgia.

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