No convincing evidence of the Russians' involvement in the alleged war crimes in Libya is given in the first report of the fact-finding mission to Libya, presented on October 7 at the 48th session of the UN human rights council (HRC). This was stated in the commentary of the official representative of the Russian foreign ministry Maria Zakharova released on Wednesday.
"The information presented in the aforementioned document requires careful study, but even a preliminary analysis raises a number of questions about its content, especially with regard to compliance with the principle of objectivity and neutrality," she said. - "Most of the conclusions are based on "interviews" with unnamed victims and information from open sources of dubious credibility, including an explicitly propagandistic report by the British broadcaster BBC which disseminated false information about Russian citizens allegedly committing war crimes in Libya. No convincing evidence of Russian involvement in the alleged crimes is provided. Once again, we are invited to take their word for it".
The diplomat stressed once again that there are no Russian servicemen on the territory of Libya. "Regrettably, consciously or not, the authors of the report were following the lead of those forces, which were trying to create the false impression that Moscow had taken part in the inter-Libyan armed confrontation, openly taking the side of one of the parties to the conflict, and to discredit Russian policy in Libya," added the spokeswoman of the MFA. - "They are silent about the fact that the causes of the current difficult humanitarian situation in Libya are rooted in the destruction of Libyan statehood by NATO countries in 2011, which committed aggression against a sovereign UN member state to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi".
The Libya fact-finding mission, composed of three experts, was created by a HRC resolution adopted in June 2020. The mission's task is to investigate allegations of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in that country since 2016.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS