Four members of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine are accused of war crimes by the American judiciary
The United States has charged four members of Russian forces in Ukraine with war crimes against an American citizen, American justice officials announced on Wednesday, saying they were the first prosecutions brought under America’s 1996 war crimes law. “The Department of Justice has initiated the first prosecutions under the U.S. War Crimes Act against four Russian-allied military personnel for heinous crimes against a U.S. citizen,” said Secretary Merrick Garland. He spoke at a joint news conference with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
According to the indictment released on Tuesday, the alleged acts, including torture and inhumane treatment, occurred in April 2022 in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine. According to the same sources, the four members of the Russian or pro-Russian separatist forces, only two of whom were named, abducted the victim, an unidentified civilian, in the village of Mylove and held him for ten days.
During that detention, he was interrogated, “tortured, threatened with sexual assault and execution” and even carried out a mock execution by the four defendants, Mr. Garland said. They face three war crimes charges: illegal detention, torture and inhumane treatment. If arrested by the United States, they face life imprisonment.
Department of Homeland Security agents traveled in August 2022 “to speak with an American citizen who had recently been evacuated from Ukraine, where he was living with his wife,” Mr. Mayorkas said, without specifying in which country these testimonies were collected had been.