Published: 05:13 PM, 18 September 2022
EU calls for war crime tribunal over mass graves in Ukraine
The EU presidency on Saturday called for the establishment of an international tribunal for war crimes after new mass graves were found in Ukraine.
"In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent," said Jan Lipavsky, foreign minister of the Czech Republic which holds the European Union's rotating presidency.
"We must not overlook it. We stand for the punishment of all war criminals," he added in a message on Twitter.
"I call for the speedy establishment of a special international tribunal that will prosecute the crime of aggression."
The appeal follows the discovery by Ukrainian authorities of around 450 graves outside the formerly Russian-occupied city of Izyum with some of the exhumed bodies showing signs of torture.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, in his evening address, said that "new evidence of torture was obtained" from the bodies buried there.
"More than 10 torture chambers have already been found in various cities and towns liberated in Kharkiv region," he added, describing the discovery of electrical implements for torture.
"That's what the Nazis did. This is what Ruscists do. And they will be held accountable in the same way -- both on the battlefield and in courtrooms," he promised.
"Among the bodies that were exhumed today, 99 percent showed signs of violent death," Oleg Synegubov, head of Kharkiv regional administration, said on social media.
"There are several bodies with their hands tied behind their backs, and one person is buried with a rope around his neck," he added.
- 'Probably 1,000 tortured and killed' -
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the mass graves likely provided more evidence that Russia is committing war crimes in its pro-Western neighbour. French President Emmanuel Macron described what had happened in Izyum as atrocities.
The Ukrainian parliament's human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, said there were "probably more than 1,000 Ukrainian citizens tortured and killed in the liberated territories of the Kharkiv region".
The United Nations in Geneva has said it hopes to send a team to determine the circumstances of the deaths.
The macabre discoveries came a little more than five months after the Russian army, driven out of Bucha near the capital Kyiv, left behind hundreds of corpses of civilians, many of whom had signs of torture and summary executions.
On Thursday, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted Russian President Vladimir Putin to face the International Criminal Court over war crimes in Ukraine.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin against using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons in the wake of serious losses in his war in Ukraine.
"Don't. Don't. Don't," Biden said, in an excerpt from an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" aired Friday evening.
"You would change the face of war unlike anything since World War II," Biden said.
