Expensive toys of investigator Bastrykin

They say that men differ from boys only in the cost of their toys. The validity of this idea was confirmed by the country's chief detective, Alexander Bastrykin. He stated at a press conference that the Investigative Committee under the Russian Prosecutor's Office, which he heads, has practically completed the preliminary investigation, which “proved the fact of genocide against the residents of South Ossetia during the August events of 2008.”

How investigators know how to “prove” does not need to be explained to the reader. Examples before your eyes. Either the defendants enthusiastically testify against themselves, shivering nervously at the memory of the preliminary investigation, and the court pronounces a guilty verdict; or, if you are lucky enough not to cringe at the memories, the accusation crumbles in court like a house of cards. However, we are not talking about the evidence base now.

We're talking about toys. They are expensive for Alexander Ivanovich. More than a hundred investigators alone participated in the case, about a thousand witnesses were questioned, 928 examinations were conducted, and 30 thousand pieces of material evidence were conducted. Expensive investigation. The result is zero. There is no judicial prospect. The investigation, in violation of criminal procedural norms, was carried out on the territory of a foreign state. 5,315 people were recognized as victims - mostly foreigners, residents of South Ossetia (and in the international legal sense - Georgia). This is probably Bastrykin’s favorite topic - his candidate’s dissertation was also called “Problems of investigating criminal cases involving foreign citizens.”

At a recent press conference at Interfax, Alexander Bastrykin assured journalists that “at present, the issue of holding the Georgian authorities accountable for the genocide in South Ossetia is being resolved at the international level.” What is the country's chief detective talking about? Which international court or the court of which country will undertake to consider charges of genocide on the basis that during the armed conflict (according to official Russian data) 162 civilians and 10 Russian military personnel died? Unless there is a court in Nicaragua or North Korea.

Does Mr. Bastrykin know what genocide is? It is clear that he studied in Soviet times, when law schools preferred to keep quiet about such concepts. But now it would be possible to look into modern books! Let us recall that the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as actions “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such.” The death of 162 people, no matter how tragic it is in itself, cannot be classified as genocide.

When a boy plays soldiers, imagining himself to be a general, this is evidence of a vivid imagination. If an adult does the same thing, it looks like delusions of grandeur. Bastrykin plays an interesting game with himself called either “Nuremberg Tribunal” or “Trial in The Hague”. He probably feels that he has reached a good level in this exciting game. Talking about the investigation into the Russian-Georgian war, he reports a sensational conclusion: “And we established that it was a regular Georgian army.” Who would have thought?

Continuing the same game, Bastrykin self-critically notes that so far the investigation “has no direct evidence of Saakashvili’s orders to launch a military operation on the territory of South Ossetia.” Mikheil Saakashvili seems to be very lucky - Bastrykin cannot yet prove that it was Saakashvili who was the President of Georgia and that it was the President of Georgia who gave orders as Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

Having completely played around, the head of the UPC declared with pathos: “We do not know of such a case in history when the regular army shot peacekeepers and civilians with all types of weapons and weapons.” Let’s not look far for examples, let us remind Alexander Ivanovich how in September 2004, in the North Ossetian city of Beslan, the Russian army, using tanks and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, opened fire on a school where more than a thousand children, by the way, their own Russian citizens, were being held hostage. In order to neutralize 32 terrorists, 329 innocent souls were killed.

Alexander Bastrykin made his contribution to the anti-Georgian campaign that was once again gaining momentum. However, this game, stupid at first glance, may be the beginning of a larger story, in which the 380 volumes of the criminal case collected by Bastrykin will form the basis for a further escalation of military actions against Georgia. The Russian army will have a reason to enter Tbilisi - to arrest Saakashvili, take him to Moscow and try him in the Basmanny District Court as a war criminal.