- At least 20 torture chambers in the city of Kherson were planned and directly financed by the Kremlin, international lawyers said in a new report.
- More than 1,000 Ukrainians gave first-hand accounts of their time in the torture centers, which were located in basements of abandoned buildings as well as in former prisons.
- Electric shock torture and waterboarding are among the criminal acts described by Ukrainian women and men imprisoned at the torture chambers in Kherson
Read more at. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/02/ukraine-russia-war-kherson-torture-centers-financed-by-kremlin.html
At least 20 torture centers in the recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson have direct financial links to the Kremlin, according to a team of international lawyers helping Ukraine investigate alleged Russian war crimes.
The new evidence comes one year after Kherson was captured by Russian forces. It was the first major Ukrainian city to fall during Moscow’s full-scale invasion. In November, Ukrainian forces liberated the southeastern city, once home to more than 280,000 people.
“Working closely with Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General, a paper trail has been exposed that shows that the main torture chambers in Kherson and those administering them do so through the financial support of the Russian state,” Wayne Jordash, an international human rights lawyer and managing partner of the law firm Global Rights Compliance, told CNBC.
Jordash added that the team of lawyers, experts and investigators uncovered that the torture sites were directly managed by several Kremlin security agencies, including Russia’s Federal Security Services, known as the FSB, successor to the KGB.
Ukraine Advisory Group (ACA)
OFFICE OF GLOBAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Releases
The Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA)
- Launched in May 2022, the ACA is intended to streamline multinational efforts to encourage the expeditious deployment of financial resources and skilled personnel to respond to the needs of the OPG as the legally constituted authority in Ukraine responsible for the prosecution of war crimes in its own territory.
- The ACA consists of two key components: the Prosecutorial Support Unit (PSU) and the Mobile Justice Teams (MJTs). The PSU provides expert advice to the OPG on international humanitarian law, guidance on the building of case files, expert opinions and overall direction on the prosecution of domestic cases. The MJTs serve a rapid response function by providing expert advice to Ukrainian investigators situated in the field. ACA includes specialists from Europe, the U.S, and the UK, and includes war crimes investigators, international prosecutors, military analysts, conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) experts, etc.
- The ACA’s activities are based in Kyiv, but will expand to other parts of the country as security conditions allow. At the request of the OPG, ACA will open three field offices in Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Odessa to enable support to regional prosecutors on the front lines. Expert Working Groups (EWGs) are already being established in the fields of Crimes against Children, CRSV, Genocide, Case Reviews, Investigations and Military Analysis.
- The ACA is funded, from the U.S. side, by the Office of Global Criminal Justice (GCJ) via a $10 million grant to Georgetown University, the lead Secretariat of ACA. The ACA is led by Clint Williamson (US Amb., ret). GCJ anticipates an additional $15 million grant to be made available to provide continued assistance to the OPG, as well as to support closely related accountability initiatives by key partners and organizations, pending allocation and authorization.
- GCJ is led by the Ambassador at Large for Global Criminal Justice, Beth van Schaack, and leads on ACA engagement for State and the U.S. government generally. GCJ specializes in policy related to prevention and accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
- The ACA is not intended to exercise executive law enforcement authority but serve solely in an advisory and supporting role to the OPG in a manner that does not conflict with the work of joint investigative teams (JIT), the ICC, Eurojust, Europol, or other international bodies.