In August-September, the term for pre-trial investigation of war crimes committed by Russians in February-March 2022, for which no suspicion was served, will expire. This may mean that all war crimes cases in Russia where no specific suspects have been identified will be closed.
Source. The head of the Department, Yuriy Belousov, said this in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
"The Criminal Procedure Code sets the investigation period. For serious crimes, it is 18 months. That is, if we have not identified anyone involved, have not served anyone with a notice of suspicion, the pre-trial investigation ends after 18 months. Then either it is automatically closed or we have to extend the term with the investigating judge," he explains.
According to him, there are simply not enough judges to consider the entire array of motions for extension of time.
"For example, we currently have about 17,000 criminal proceedings for war crimes in the entire Kharkiv region. Extensions of terms should be considered by the courts at the location of the pre-trial investigation body. And there are 4 judges in the court of this district. And 17 thousand of our proceedings! Even if they just stamp them without reviewing them, they won't be able to do it in time. So it turns out that our situation is really critical," Belousov said.
He sees a way out of this situation in urgent amendments to the legislation.
"We are counting on parliamentarians. We are very grateful to the Committee on Law Enforcement, which is currently considering the main draft law 9314, and a number of alternative drafts are also under consideration. They all relate to amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code regarding the terms of pre-trial investigation during martial law.
We really, really hope that the committee will find an opportunity to support these changes, and they will be voted on in the session hall," he said.
Background. According to Belousov, 98,000 war crimes have been recorded in Ukraine to date.