The European Court of Human Rights announces examining a complaint filed by kyiv against Moscow in 2021
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced on Monday that it examined a complaint filed by Ukraine against Russia in 2021 to denounce the targeted assassinations that the Kremlin would have ordered against its opponents, in Russia and abroad. This file “As well as the questions asked by the Court” were sent at the end of March to the Russian government, which has until July 23 “To submit your observations”said in a press release the judicial body of the Council of Europe.
Russia has not been a member of the pan -European organization since September 2022, but remains required to submit to the ECHR procedures launched against it before this date. In his complaint, filed in Strasbourg in February 2021 – a year before the start of the war – the Ukrainian government “Allegues that the Russian government has authorized and continues to authorize targeted assassination operations against the persons it considers opponents, in Russia itself and in the territory of other states”like Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Latvia, Montenegro, the United Kingdom and Ukraine, explains the court.
Moscow would have “Deliberately maneuvered” For “Hide” These crimes, says Ukraine, which evokes in its complaint 24 assassinations or attempts at assassinations committed between 2003 and 2020. Among them, kyiv quotes the cases of Boris Nemtsov, shot dead in Moscow in 2015, Zelimkhan Khangochvili, a Georgian of Chechen origin killed in Berlin in 2019, and Anna Politkovskaïa, journalist Russian murdered in Moscow in 2006. Or those of two Russian ex-agents murdered in the United Kingdom, Sergei Skripal in 2018-with a neurotoxic product-and Alexandre Litvinenko in 2006-with a radioactive substance. In the case of Mr. Litvinenko, the ECHR had tried Russia in 2021 ” responsible ” From this assassination, which the Kremlin has always denied.
The complaint also mentions the assassination attempts against two famous Russian opponents: Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last year, and Vladimir Kara-Mourza, sentenced to twenty-five years in prison and then released in August 2024 during the greatest exchange of prisoners between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.
Source: Lemonde