If Ukraine ratifies the Rome Statute, terrorists will forget about amnesty – lawyer

The Russian Federation will continue its aggression against Ukraine. It is necessary to immediately ratify the Rome Statute for Ukraine to have an opportunity to punish the war criminals.

This is the opinion of Oleh Veremeyenko, the lawyer who cooperates with the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union in the issue of release of the captives and search for the people gone missing.

“Why doesn’t the Parliament, other public authorities, journalists talk about this? The President has only recently said that he was told about the need to ratify the Rome Statute. The abductions and tortures of people are war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute. If the Statute had been ratified, there would have been no periods of limitations. Then the terrorists would not have twisted the arms of Security Service’s negotiators, volunteers, saying, ‘The captives will be released after the amnesty law is passed’,” Oleh Veremeyenko says.

The lawyer also believes that Ukraine has no state policy for identifying war criminals.

“We have given over a hundred of interviews for a year of work. The names of the terrorists, who torture, break arms and legs, can be counted on the fingers of two hands. We all know the Maniac, the Adrenaline, and so on. Has the Interior Ministry published the list of top ten terrorists who torture people on its website as the Interpol does?” Oleh Veremeyenko wonders.

The lawyer also laments that the Ukrainian mass media do not spread information about such criminals along with their photos.

“However, the terrorists search for our servicemen and intelligence officers. People, who return from captivity, say that a large number of photos of our commanders and servicemen hang at the Donetsk security service,” Oleh Veremeyenko notes.

He suggests that the state should set up an extra-budgetary fund operating on private means to announce the reward for information to arrest the terrorists in Ukraine.

“They come to our territory because their wives and children live here. It is a matter of time to catch them,” the lawyer notes.

As a reminder, according to the report “Survivors of Hell”, 33% of servicemen and 16% of civilians witnessed the deaths as a result of tortures by terrorists. The data are based on the survey conducted among 165 respondents, who were illegally detained in 79 places of detention.