The former UN chief prosecutor, Carla De Ponte, has called for an international arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine.
Ms. Del Ponte worked as a chief prosecutor at the United Nations handling war crimes in Rwanda and Yugoslavia.
‘Putin is a war criminal,’ she told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps during an interview on Saturday.
She said that she was specifically shocked by the mass graves resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
‘I hoped never to see mass graves again,’ she told the newspaper Blick.
‘These dead people have loved ones who don’t even know what’s become of them. That is unacceptable.’
She identified several war crimes such as destruction of civilian buildings, attacks on civilians and demolishing of entire villages. She noted that the investigation in Ukraine will be easier than that in Yugoslavia because the country called for international investigations of the alleged war crimes.
Last month, Karim Khan, the chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court visited Ukraine. That means ICC is conducting investigations on the alleged war crimes and they will prosecute those responsible for those crimes.
The former UN chief prosecutor said that there is a possibility of holding even Putin into account.
‘You mustn’t let go, continue to investigation. When the investigation into Slobodan Milosevic began, he was still president of Serbia. Who would have thought then that he would one day be judged? Nobody,’ she told Blick.
Ms Del Ponte called for investigations into possible war crimes by both sides. Ukraine is also alleged to have tortured some Russian war prisoners.
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