Washington, Apr 17 (EFE).- The United States Attorney General, Merrick Garland, announced Monday that the Department of Justice will assign a prosecutor to investigate the crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine.
Specifically, the US prosecutor will work for the so-called “International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine”, created by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), made up of Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Romania. in order to investigate Russian war crimes on Ukrainian soil.
Garland made this announcement after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andriy Kostin, and explained that it is the result of the memorandum of understanding signed on his trip to Lviv (Ukraine) last month, in which it was agreed to facilitate cooperation and coordination with this center.
“As we discussed today, to further strengthen this partnership, the Department of Justice will assign an experienced prosecutor,” who will be located in The Hague at the headquarters of Eurojust, the European Union agency tasked with strengthening judicial cooperation.
This prosecutor will “provide access to the significant Department resources that we have deployed in response to this crisis,” Garland said.
The Department of Justice also plans to send a resident legal adviser to the US Embassy in kyiv this summer.
At the meeting, Garland and Kostin discussed the future of justice in Ukraine, discussed the ways in which they are working to strengthen it, and reaffirmed their commitment “to protect democracy and the rule of law.”
“For more than a year, the people of Ukraine have fought courageously and with conviction to protect their country. They have worked with tireless determination to record the brutalities committed against thousands of Ukrainian men, women and children, and to hold the perpetrators of those atrocities to account before the law,” Garland said.
The United States, he added, will do “everything possible to help Ukraine achieve justice for its people” and will work “as long as it takes to hold those responsible for the brutal crimes of the Russian regime to account before the law.”
