The decision of the International Criminal Court to arrest three South Ossetian citizens is directly related to the events taking place today in Ukraine and falls into the clear policy of the collective West directed against Russia, the MP, David Sanakoev said.
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan, as part of the investigation into the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict in 2008, requested the issuance of arrest warrants against three persons. The request concerns the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of South Ossetia, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Mindzaev, the former head of the temporary detention center Hamlet Guchmazov, and David Sanakoev, who served as the Presidential Plenipotentiary of the Republic of South Ossetia for human rights during the conflict.
“Based on the evidence collected and studied by my department, I have sufficient grounds to believe that these three individuals are criminally responsible for the following war crimes committed in and around South Ossetia from 8 to 27 August 2008: unlawful deprivation freedom, inhuman treatment, infringement of personal dignity, hostage-taking,” reads the communiqué on the ICC website, writes RIA-Novosti.
According to Sanakoev, for some reason the ICC does not take into account the report of Heidi Tagliavini, the head of the international commission to investigate the circumstances of the conflict in the South Caucasus, which clearly indicated that Georgia unleashed a war against South Ossetia in August 2008 and aggressive actions were taken against the South Ossetian people from the Georgian state.
“Besides, so far none of those who made the decision to attack South Ossetia and carried out these orders have been punished,” the deputy believes.
Sanakoev has stressed that instead of an objective investigation into the atrocities of the Georgian state against the citizens of South Ossetia, the criminals are encouraged and rewarded.
“All these actions are directed against Russia. I took part in those years in the negotiations on the release of captured South Ossetian citizens during the war on 08.08.08., and by the end of August 2008, we managed to return to their homeland almost all if them, with the exception of seven missing citizens. They also returned some citizens who were detained by representatives of Georgia until August 2008, and who were serving sentences in Georgian dungeons on various fictitious cases. We were not able to resolve the issue of releasing citizens sentenced to life terms,” he said.
David Sanakoev has remained that a lot of work was being done to transfer ethnic Georgians living in South Ossetia to their relatives. He has noted that this whole procedure was carried out voluntarily, with the written consent of the citizen himself.
"In addition to the representatives of South Ossetia and Georgia, Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, participated in the negotiation process as observers and witnessed the processes taking place here," the deputy assured.
