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As of: 04/06/2022 1:51 p.m
The Ukraine war also occupies the German judiciary. The BKA is tasked with investigating war crimes and identifying the perpetrators. But how realistic is it that Russian soldiers or even Vladimir Putin will eventually stand trial?
The State Security Unit (ST) 25 – the central office for combating war crimes – resides in the facility of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Meckenheim. The investigators working there are responsible for the worst crimes of all: war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
In recent years, atrocities from various war and crisis zones around the world have been dealt with here. For example, it was about torturers of the Syrian Assad regime or about IS jihadists. Since mid-March, the BKA has been focusing on a new conflict: the war in Ukraine.
The Attorney General in Karlsruhe has initiated a so-called structural investigation. The first step is to analyze the conflict and all the actors involved – and then to determine whether war crimes have been committed and how these can be solved.
documentation of evidence
Around a dozen BKA investigators from the “Ukraine” investigative group (EG) are now busy securing and evaluating evidence. They collate photos and videos in databases, scour social media, and collect eyewitness accounts. The many people from Ukraine who fled to Germany are considered important potential witnesses. They are now to be asked whether they have observed such atrocities or even experienced them themselves.
The Federal Intelligence Service (BND), which analyzes military events, listens to radio messages and receives valuable information from the Ukrainian partner services, such as the results of the interrogations of prisoners of war, is also involved.
International Criminal Court investigates in Ukraine
The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, has been in place since 2002 to prosecute war crimes and genocide. However, the court does not have its own police force; it is dependent on the respective states implementing the arrest warrants and arresting and extraditing suspects. The criminal court is currently supported by 123 states, including all EU member states, but not by China, India, the USA, Turkey, Israel – and Russia.
Since February 2021, the Chief Prosecutor of the Criminal Court has been the British lawyer Karim Ahmad Khan, who previously worked at the UN tribunals on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In early March, Khan announced that he had now launched an investigation into the Ukraine war. Shortly thereafter, the prosecutor himself traveled to Kyiv and his team began collecting evidence.
Joint Investigation Team formed
Efforts are now being made to establish international cooperation in order to make criminal prosecution more effective given the dimensions of the war. A first Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has already been set up, which currently includes Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. Other states could follow. The EU authority Eurojust is also involved, and two conferences by European law enforcement agencies on the Ukraine war have already taken place, in which German representatives were also involved.
Among other things, it should be clarified whether the public prosecutor’s offices should deal with certain outstanding events of the conflict and how this can be divided up. For example, the murder of civilians in Bucha, the alleged deliberate destruction of civilian facilities in Mariupol and Irpin.
France’s judiciary, the anti-terrorist public prosecutor’s office in Paris, has already launched three specific investigations into suspected war crimes against French citizens in Ukraine. The exact background is not known. However, it is said to be acts that took place between February 24 and March 16 in Mariupol, Kharkiv and Hostomel.
Trials against perpetrators often very late
The legal processing of the war will probably take a long time. It also remains unclear where those responsible for crimes could ultimately come to court, or whether a corresponding tribunal can still take place in Ukraine. A look at The Hague also shows that those responsible often only come before an international court and are convicted after many years – if at all.
The trial of a Sudanese commander before the International Criminal Court began just this week. The crimes he is accused of date back around 15 years. Serb leader Slobodan Milošević, accused of numerous crimes during the civil war in what was then Yugoslavia in the 1990s, died in custody in March 2006 before a verdict could be reached. Libyan ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi was killed before he could be taken to The Hague.
German justice can also punish war crimes
But it is not only the war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands that can convict torturers and genocides. The German judiciary can also prosecute crimes under international criminal law – even if there are neither German perpetrators nor German victims and the crimes did not occur in Germany. The so-called “universal legal principle” makes this possible, according to which international humanitarian law can also be applied in the Federal Republic.
In several cases this has already happened. In January of this year, a former Syrian intelligence service colonel was sentenced to life in prison in a landmark trial in Koblenz for crimes against humanity, 27 counts of murder, torture and other offences. It was the first verdict in the world involving a crime committed by the Assad regime. The BKA carried out extensive investigations, questioned a number of witnesses and evaluated more than 50,000 photos.
Realistic chance for German charges
The judgment in Koblenz has strengthened the investigators at the BKA in Meckenheim that even the major wars and conflicts in the world can end up in a German courtroom, possibly even faster than in The Hague. However, it is unlikely that Russia will extradite Vladimir Putin or his generals as those responsible for the war of aggression in the near future.
However, this does not mean that you cannot get other war criminals, according to the Attorney General in Karlsruhe. There is a realistic chance of getting hold of individual commanders, so to speak from the middle or lower ranks of the Russian military apparatus. After all, Ukraine also made numerous prisoners of war.