Chief Military Prosecutor's Office of the RF refused to carry out a new inspection on "abnormal" death of 159 Russian soldiers
Chief Military Prosecutor's Office rejected the request of a human rights activist for additional verification of information about the death of 159 Russian soldiers in the period from January 1st, 2014 to July 30th, 2015. It is stated in the answer of the chief of the 3rd supervision department of the CMPO Major-General of justice Maxim Toporikov to chairperson of the Commission on Civil-Military Relations of the Human Rights Council under the President (HRC) Sergey Krivenko, - reports RBK.
It is noted that the staff of the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office responsible for inspections and criminal cases on the facts of the death of 159 soldiers in the period from January 1st, 2014 to July 30th, 2015 did not reveal any violations of the law and confirmed the legality of the decisions taken.
"The circumstances of the death of Russian troops from the listed ones in your request were verified in the order provided by the criminal procedure law. The bodies of the Military Prosecutor's Office set up and monitored the implementation of legislation during inspections and criminal investigations. The legitimacy of the decisions taken were verified. There are no grounds for their abolition,"- writes Toporikov in reply to Krivenko.
Prosecutor’s Office also stressed that the supervisory authority found no violations of human rights and non-compliance of social guarantees for the families of servicemen killed on duty.
In December Krivenko appealed to the Investigation Committee and the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office to verify the information about the death of 159 Russian military in the period from January 1st, 2014 to July 30th, 2015. The human rights activist attached to his appeal a list of names of the dead soldiers with an indication of military units - such data are the result of independent research conducted by Krivenko. Among them there are 98 deaths of military, the verification or investigation of which were not informed by any single agency. Mostly we are talking in such cases about the soldiers, whose death dates back to August-September 2014.
Krivenko called the situation with the death of the military in the second half of 2014 anomalous in the interview with the publication. During these six months the Russian army lost at least 108 people (68% of the total for a year and a half). In most cases (80%) there is no clear information about the circumstances of death and check of the facts of death by investigators or by the Military Prosecutor's Office.
It is late summer and early autumn of 2014 that was the peak of reports on death of Russian troops in the conflict in the south-east of Ukraine.
According to Krivenko, the most important thing for human rights activists is to ensure observation of the rights of the military and their families on an objective investigation of the circumstances of their death (whether on exercise or during the fighting) and, if necessary, to bring the perpetrators to justice. Krivenko refers to the recommendations of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers of states - members on the military rights protection, which was adopted in 2010.
Krivenko said there was no answer from the ICR. The answer from the Prosecutor's Office, in his opinion, is not sufficient: the human rights activist expected to receive clarification of each individual case of death of the military.