A Ukrainian man accuses Russian soldiers of torture. The charge was registered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Monday.
An unusual lawsuit was filed Monday at the Federal Court in Buenos Aires, Argentina: a Ukrainian man accuses Russian soldiers of illegally imprisoning and torturing him in 2022.
The news agency Reuters has seen the 70-page lawsuit and interviewed the Ukrainian man in Buenos Aires. The man appears anonymously because he says he is afraid for his loved ones living in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
The lawsuit names one Russian man by name and two Russian soldiers by their combatant names. In addition, the lawsuit mentions other unnamed Russian persons and the Ukrainian man’s supervisor.
A Ukrainian man says the Russians committed war crimes. According to the man, he was imprisoned at his workplace, after which he was tortured in captivity with electric current and interrogated for 20 days.
He was eventually released without charge. Later, the man managed to escape from the occupied territory to the Ukrainian side.
Reuters cannot confirm the accuracy of the man’s story. In the lawsuit seen by Reuters, there were testimonies from other people held in the same detention center, the accuracy of which Reuters cannot verify either.
Ukrainian courts are completely overwhelmed with war crimes investigations. The Ukrainian man’s lawsuit is supported by the Ukrainian non-governmental organization The Reckoning Project.
Argentina has a history in investigating war crimes
The federal court in Buenos Aires must now decide whether to accept the lawsuit.
If this happens, it will be the first time that the alleged war crimes committed by the Russians in the Ukraine war will be dealt with outside of Europe and the United States.
Argentina’s legal system has solid expertise in dealing with war crimes. Experience has been gained from the trials of the leaders of the military junta that ruled the country between 1973 and 1983 in the 1980s.
The Argentine constitution allows war crimes committed in other countries to be tried in the country’s courts, even if the victim or the suspects have no ties to the country.
The country’s courts have previously dealt with war crime cases, among other things From Spain, From Yemen and from Myanmar.
However, in cross-border war crimes trials, the problem is that it is almost impossible for the authorities to enforce judgments outside their country’s borders.
Source: Reuters