International Criminal Court: Pre-Trial I Chamber issues three arrest warrants for the situation for Georgia.
GHRTV
04-07-2022
Grace ATALUI MOKANGO
International Justice and Human Rights Researcher
Global Human Rights Defence
In a press release dated 30 June 2022, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court declares that it has issued a public redacted version of the arrest warrants for three individuals in the context of the situation in Georgia: Mr Mikhail Mayramovich Mindzaev, Mr Gamlet Guchmazov and Mr David Georgiyevich Sanakoev.
The statement further states that on 24 June 2022 On 24 June 2022, Pre-Trial Chamber I, composed of Judge Péter Kovács, Presiding Judge, Judge Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou and Judge María del Socorro Flores Liera, considered, based on the Prosecutor’s application of 10 March 2022, that there were reasonable grounds to believe that each of these three suspects bears responsibility for war crimes. The arrest warrants relate to conduct during the 2008 armed conflict between Russia and Georgia. There are reasonable grounds to believe that civilians perceived to be ethnically Georgian were arrested in the South Ossetian part of Georgia, and subsequently detained, mistreated, and kept in harsh detention conditions in a detention centre in Tskhinvali (the so-called ‘Isolator’ or ‘KPZ’ detention centre), before being used as a bargaining tool by Russia and the South Ossetian de facto authorities, and used for an exchange of prisoners and detainees. As a result of the exchange, the detainees were forced to leave South Ossetia.
In this respect, the Court relies on the cooperation of any relevant State or international organisation in order to execute the request for the arrest and surrender of the suspects.
Source and further reading
International Criminal Court, Situation in Georgia: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber delivers three arrest warrants, Press release, ( 30 June 2022), from: https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-georgia-icc-pre-trial-chamber-delivers-three-arrest-warrants
