Russia alarmed over repatriation of Islamic State terrorists from Iraq

Russia is alarmed over the problem of repatriation of Islamic State militants from Iraq to the countries of their origin, Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Kuzmin said on Monday at a UN Security Council session on the situation in Iraq.

The UN Security Council heard a report by United Nations Secretary General’s Special Adviser Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, who leads the investigative team tasked with supporting domestic efforts to hold Islamic State accountable by collecting, preserving, and storing evidence of IS acts that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed.

“We note with satisfaction that the team has begun practical work on the ground and is collecting evidence in Iraq,” the Russian diplomat said. “We expect that Iraq’s judicial system will soon launch concrete trials of terrorists based on this evidence as well.”

But, “it would be wrong to burden only Iraq and other countries in the region with all the problems related to such court trials,” Kuzmin noted. “In this context, we are alarmed over the unresolved problem of repatriation of foreign militants to the countries of their origin.”

According to the Russian diplomat, various options for such trials are being considered, with some of them described as unrealistic. “We believe that Mr. Khan might be quite of help at a certain stage at many discussion platforms of such kind,” he said. “We call on him not to yield to political and legal temptations and strictly obey by the key mandate of Resolution 2379 [on the establishment of the investigative team].”

Ahmad Khan, in turn, said that since the latest briefing, the team had reached visible progress in the implementation of its mandate and thanked the Iraqi government and the UN Security Council members for support to his mission.

Source: Tass