SYRIA: NGOS FILE LANDMARK CASE AGAINST RUSSIAN WAGNER GROUP

Mon 15 March 2021:

Three prominent advocacy groups from France, Russia and Syria file criminal complaint over 2017 beheading of a Syrian man.

Three nongovernmental organizations announced on Monday they had filed a landmark legal case in Moscow over the torture of a Syrian detainee.

The case against the Russian mercenary group Wagner comes after several cases in Europe seeking justice for torture victims in the Syrian war.

The legal push against Wagner Group on Monday follows a wave of torture-related cases in Europe against officials of the Syrian regime a decade into a punishing war whose tide was turned by Moscow’s military intervention in 2015.

“This litigation is a first-ever attempt by the family of a Syrian victim to hold Russian suspects accountable for serious crimes committed in Syria,” the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) and Russian rights group Memorial said in a joint statement.

The complaint on Monday follows dozens brought in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Norway against officials in al-Assad’s government by some 100 refugees, backed by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, a Berlin-based NGO.

Across Europe, activists are joining forces with police and UN investigators in collecting testimonies, sifting through tens of thousands of photos, videos and files of one of the best-documented conflicts in history.

What is the case?

The three NGOs said they filed the case on behalf of a family member of a Syrian torture victim.

The victim was “tortured, killed, and had his corpse mutilated by six individuals in 2017,” the NGOs said in a statement.

They accuse the Kremlin of using Wagner fighters to evade accountability for human rights violations committed in Syria.

What is the Wagner group?

Wagner, a shadowy military outfit comprising private fighters linked to the Kremlin’s wars in Ukraine, Africa and the Middle East, has been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Since 2014, rights groups and media reports have linked the private military group to separatist insurrection in eastern Ukraine, and bolstering conflicts in Libya and the Central African Republic.

The group allegedly reels in law enforcement and military soldiers with salaries at least five times higher than their average income in Russia, according to the AFP news agency.

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Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin is believed to finance the group. The European Union and the United States previously imposed sanctions on Prigozhin over meddling in Libya’s conflict and US elections.

The 59-year-old is said to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and is dubbed “Putin’s chef” by the media. He denies links to the Wagner group.

Rights groups have long slammed Russia for its involvement in the Syrian war, accusing the Kremlin of targeting civilians.

Although private military companies are illegal in Russia, observers say Wagner has in recent years played an increasingly important role in buttressing and realising the Kremlin’s ambitions abroad.

Wagner has been linked to businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin (right), a powerful ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.PHOTO: AFP

The group was reportedly dispatched alongside Russian warplanes and ground troops following Moscow’s intervention in the war in Syria in September 2015 on the side of President Bashar al-Assad’s army.

Its presence there was forced into the spotlight in 2018 when independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that several Russian-speaking men, who executed and mutilated a detainee on video in the eastern Homs province, were Wagner fighters.