Former UN chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte calls for international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin as she says Russian President is a ‘war criminal’
- Ex-UN chief prosecutor called for international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin
- Carla Del Ponte said Putin was a ‘war criminal’ owing to his actions in Ukraine
- Ms Del Ponte led war crimes prosecutions in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda
The former UN chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has called for an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.
She said the Russian President was a ‘war criminal’ owing to his actions in Ukraine.
Ms Del Ponte was in charge of prosecutions of war crime tribunals for the UN in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
‘Putin is a war criminal,’ she told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps in an interview published on Saturday.
The former UN chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte (pictured) has called for an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin because she said he was a ‘war criminal’
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council via teleconference call at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on April 1
She said she was particularly shocked by the use of mass graves in Russia’s war on Ukraine, which recalls the worst of the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
‘I hoped never to see mass graves again,’ she told the newspaper Blick.
‘These dead people have loved ones who don’t even know what’s become of them. That is unacceptable.’
Other war crimes she identified in Ukraine include attacks on civilians, the destruction of civilian buildings and even the demolishing of entire villages.
She said the investigation in Ukraine would be easier than that in Yugoslavia because the country itself had requested an international probe.
The current International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, visited Ukraine last month.
An aerial picture shows burned Russian armoured vehicles in the outskirts of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, on Friday
Columns of Russian armoured vehicles have been reduced to rubble as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s troops continue to repel Russian forces, and in some instances recapture roads and settlements near to Kyiv
Ukrainian policemen check the wreckage of Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers (APC) in Dmytrivka village, west of Kyiv, on April 2
Ukrainian servicemen walk next to destroyed Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers (APC) in Dmytrivka
Burned Russian armoured vehicles are seen on the outskirts of Kyiv. Since the conflict began in late February, Russia has lost an estimated 143 planes, 131 helicopters, 625 tanks and 316 artillery pieces
As Ukrainian units advance, they’re met with burned-out tanks and heavily-armoured personnel transport vehicles that line the roads once populated by commuters that would have been heading in or out of the capital.
If the ICC finds proof of war crimes, she said ‘you must go up the chain of command until you reach those who took the decisions.’
She said it would be possible to bring even Mr Putin to account.
‘You mustn’t let go, continue to investigation. When the investigation into Slobodan Milosevic began, he was still president of Serbia. Who would have thought then that he would one day be judged? Nobody,’ she told Blick.
Ms Del Ponte said investigations should be carried out into possible war crimes committed by both sides, pointing also to reports about the alleged torture of some Russian prisoners of war by Ukrainian forces.
It comes as once-bustling highways on the outskirts of Kyiv have become a graveyard for scores of Vladimir Putin’s tanks as the Ukrainians continue their successful counterattacks around the capital.
Columns of Russian armoured vehicles have been reduced to rubble as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s troops continue to repel Russian forces, and in some instances recapture roads and settlements near to Kyiv.
As Ukrainian units advance, they’re met with burned-out tanks and heavily-armoured personnel transport vehicles that line the roads once populated by commuters that would have been heading in or out of the capital.
Despite successful counter attacks, the country still faces no reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Pictured: A destroyed Russian personnel transport
A Ukrainian soldier inspects a damaged Russian tank depicting the ‘V’ sign as their armed forces continue to share photographs of heavy Russian losses
Pictured: Destroyed Russian machinery in the village of Dmitrivka, near Kyiv on Saturday afternoon
A damaged BMP-2 armoured personal carrier is pictured in Bucha, a town of 28,000 on the outskirts of Kyiv
A Ukrainian policeman inspects destroyed Russian heavy vehicles after Zelenskyy’s forces regained control of the village of Dmitrivka near Kyiv on Saturday
As Ukrainian units advance, they’re met with burned-out armoured tanks and troop transport vehicles that line the roads once populated by commuters heading in or out of the capital. Pictured: Destroyed Russian tanks outside Kyiv
Local residents in the village of Dmitrivka, near Kyiv, emerge from their homes and begin clearing away the burned remains of Russian tanks after a string of successful Ukrainian counterattacks
Pictured: Dozens of burned out Russian armoured vehicles line the roads out of Kyiv
A damaged APS is pictured in the recaptured by the Ukrainian army Nova Basan village of Kyiv in Ukraine on Friday
A Ukrainian soldier is seen among the ruins of a burned vehicle in Irpin, Ukraine, on Friday. It came as Ukrainian soldiers regained control in the region that is one of the conflict areas where the most intense battles have taken place
Burned-out tanks and heavily-armoured personnel transport vehicles that line the roads once populated by commuters
UK defence sources revealed last night that Kremlin forces have run out of vital weapons and cannot now replenish their stocks
President Zelensky warned Moscow’s retreating forces are leaving behind ‘catastrophic’ situations by mining the areas outside their homes, abandoning their ruined equipment and the ‘bodies of those killed’
But far more grisly finds are being discovered in the villages and towns in Kyiv’s urban sprawl. After recapturing Bucha from the Russian forces, Ukrainian troops found the bodies of 20 men in civilian clothes on a single street.
In what could be further evidence of Russian war crimes, eyewitnesses said one of the corpses had his hands tied, with the dead bodies strewn all over residential roads in the suburban town that was once home to 28,000 people.
President Zelensky warned Moscow’s retreating forces are leaving behind ‘catastrophic’ situations by mining the areas outside their homes, abandoning their ruined equipment and the ‘bodies of those killed’.
Despite successful Ukrainian counter attacks, the country still faces no reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelenskyy said he expects departed towns to endure missile strikes and rocket strikes from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.
‘It’s still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting,’ the president told his nation in a nightly video message.
‘We need wait until our land is de-mined, wait till we are able to assure you that there won’t be new shelling.’
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