U.S. attorney general vows to help track down, prosecute Russian war criminals

WASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney Normal Merrick Garland affirmed the United States’ motivation to discover, arrest and prosecute those people associated in war crimes and atrocities dedicated throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a go to to that place on Tuesday.

Garland fulfilled with Prosecutor Basic Iryna Venediktova in the vicinity of Lviv, Ukraine, and announced the generation of a workforce concentrated on war crimes accountability, the Justice Division claimed.

“The United States is sending an unmistakable information. There is no position to conceal. We will, we and our associates will go after every avenue available to make sure that individuals who are responsible for these atrocities are held accountable,” Garland instructed reporters as he entered the assembly.

The freshly designed group will support Ukraine with criminal prosecution, evidence selection and forensics of human rights abuse, war crimes and other atrocities, the department said, introducing that the team’s guide counselor is a Justice Office official who as soon as led the work to observe down Nazi war criminals.

“America – and the planet – has found the quite a few horrific photographs and go through the heart-wrenching accounts of brutality and demise that have resulted from Russia’s unjust invasion of Ukraine,” Garland claimed.

The staff will also concentration on possible war crimes about which the United States has jurisdiction, which includes killing and wounding U.S. journalists, the office claimed.

Garland’s pledge to assistance aid Ukraine in pursuing war criminals is just a person of quite a few techniques the Justice Section has taken this yr in reaction to Russia’s attack in opposition to Ukraine.

The section also introduced a process power known as “KleptoCapture” which is focused on seizing yachts and other luxurious belongings of Russian oligarchs in a bid to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Previous 7 days, the U.S. took possession of a superyacht seized in Fiji a thirty day period previously that is considered to be owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.

Reporting by Sarah Lynch Composing by Katharine Jackson Modifying by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski

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