MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the investigation by the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court into the situation in Georgia in 2008 once again showed the hypocrisy and double standards in its approach to justice
"Over 14 years of work ICC investigators, who don’t know regional specifics but obediently follow the political bidding of the court’s Western patrons, turned the situation upside down and shamelessly made the complainant in the conflict look guilty," she said in a statement, commenting on the completion of the ICC’s investigation of the situation in Georgia. "As a result, there are three arrest warrants for South Ossetia nationals, who also have Russian citizenship, over some mythical harassment of ethnic Georgians."
She said such "obvious crimes as barbaric bombardments by Georgian troops of the peaceful Tskhinvali and the attack on peacekeepers are of no interest to the Hague justice."
"Such blatant hypocrisy and double standards in the approach to justice once again confirm the correctness of the choice made by our country in favor of withdrawing our signature under the Rome Statute of the ICC," Zakharova said. "We have no confidence in the organization created on its basis. It has nothing to do with justice."
The spokeswoman also said "Russia doesn’t cooperate with the ICC, and the actions of this body with respect to Russian citizens are legally null and void."
During the investigation of the situation in Georgia, Zakharova said, "the voluminous material provided by the Russian investigative authorities, as well as volumes of complaints from civilians who were victims of the Georgian attack, were also ignored."
"The ICC prosecutor does not care about the crimes of the Americans in Afghanistan, which he openly states," the diplomat said. "Apparently, he is afraid of US sanctions, which were once imposed on his predecessor. We also have no doubt that the ICC will never deal with the recent crimes by the British armed forces in that country, which were recently reported by the news media."
According to Zakharova, the crimes committed by the fellow-countrymen of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan in Iraq also remain unpunished.
Georgia’s complaint
Georgia asked the ICC in 2008 to investigate possible war crimes committed during the conflict in South Ossetia. In 2015, after examining the situation, the prosecutor's office requested permission from the court to open an investigation into these events. In January 2016, the pre-trial chamber approved the request to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in and around South Ossetia between July 1 and October 10, 2008.