THE HAGUE, Netherlands — An exiled Belarus activist on Tuesday offered a second file of proof to the Worldwide Prison Court docket that he stated proves the private involvement of President Alexander Lukashenko within the unlawful switch of youngsters to Belarus from Russian-occupied cities in Ukraine.
Pavel Latushka, a former Belarusian tradition minister, stated a number of the new data got here from “insiders” in Belarus.
“We share extra proof proving Lukashenko’s direct participation within the illegal deportation of Ukrainian kids to Belarus as chief of the so-called Union State of Belarus and Russia,” Latushka instructed The Related Press outdoors the courtroom’s headquarters in The Hague.
The file additionally contains “proof and beforehand unknown information relating to the involvement of varied Belarusian and Russian organizations, in addition to their leaders and members, within the illegal deportation of Ukrainian kids to Belarus,” he stated, and offers extra detailed data on a “re-education program for Ukrainian kids” at a state-run camp that goals to “change the mentality of the kids in Russian world narratives.”
Latushka stated the knowledge additionally contains private particulars of 37 Ukrainian kids he stated had been illegally transferred from Ukraine to Belarus.
The overseas affairs ministry in Belarus didn’t remark Tuesday.
In June, Latushka delivered data to the courtroom he stated indicated that greater than 2,100 Ukrainian kids from at the least 15 Russia-occupied Ukrainian cities had been forcibly taken to Belarus with Lukashenko’s approval.
In June, Lukashenko rejected Latushka’s accusations as “insanity,” arguing that Belarus has briefly hosted the kids to assist them get better from the struggle’s trauma.
The ICC has an investigation into crimes dedicated in Ukraine.
In March, the courtroom issued warrants for each Putin and his commissioner for kids’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. Judges in The Hague stated they discovered “cheap grounds to imagine” that the 2 had been answerable for the struggle crimes of illegal deportation of youngsters and illegal switch of youngsters from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Moscow has rejected the allegations.
Latushka was pressured to go away Belarus below stress from Belarusian authorities following Lukashenko’s reelection in a 2020 vote that the opposition and the West denounced as rigged. He now lives in Poland.
Any group or particular person can ship proof of alleged crimes to the ICC. Prosecutors assess submissions to “establish people who seem to fall throughout the jurisdiction of the Court docket and warrant additional motion,” the courtroom says on its web site. In the event that they do, they could possibly be investigated or fed into an ongoing investigation.
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Related Press author Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed.
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Comply with AP’s protection of the struggle in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine