by Dario Thuburn
Khetagurovo, Georgia - Prosecutors from Russia and South Ossetia said Thursday they had begun a "genocide" investigation against Georgia concerning its military assault on the breakaway region.
"We're gathering evidence against the Georgian army, which attacked civilians," Alexander Dyrmanov, a spokesperson for the investigative committee of the Russian prosecutor's office, said in the bombed-out South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.
"We have the impression that they were intentionally killing Ossetians as Ossetians," said Dyrmanov, adding that all the victims so far were Russian nationals and the case would go before Russian and international courts.
"We want to collect evidence on the criminal policies of Georgia. It's a genocide investigation," said Taimuraz Khugayev, South Ossetia's prosecutor general, as he pointed to homes in Khetagurovo, a village near Tskhinvali destroyed by shelling.
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"This case will go to the International Criminal Court," he said.
Khugayev added that the authorities had found and identified 200 corpses of South Ossetian civilians and 500 people were missing. Russian investigators said they had identified a total of 60 civilians killed during the fighting.
"We've also collected more than 40 bodies of Georgian soldiers. We'll give them to the Georgians but we have no contact with them. We are doing temporary burials," he said, as two artillery explosions went off in the distance.
In Khetagurovo, which was virtually flattened by shelling, several investigators questioned local residents, took photographs of exploded ordinance, examined corpses and collected Georgian artillery as evidence.
The investigators - all in military uniform - showed off cutlery, food tins and water bottles with US army markings. They also displayed boxes filled with German-made mortars and a grenade-launcher with instructions in English.
"We hid in the cellar for two days...Twelve people died in the village. I buried two of them in the back garden," said local resident Atsarbek Mamiyev, 75, a retired Soviet army colonel, as he drank wine with Russian investigators.
In a village home relatively undamaged by the shelling, South Ossetian militiamen brought out a short bearded man with ginger hair and military fatigues who was said to be a Georgian tank soldier taken prisoner in combat.
"I'm fine," said the man, who looked dazed and was not allowed to identify himself. Militiamen also showed two Georgian defence ministry identification cards found in the rubble. - Sapa-AFP
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