U.S. Doubtful on Russian Probe into ‘South Ossetia Genocide’

U.S. Department of States spokesman, Sean McCormack, said on December 23 Georgia did not commit genocide of South Ossetians, as claimed by Russia.

Head of an investigative committee with the Russian prosecutor’s office, Aleksandr Bastrikin, said on December 23 that the Russian investigation had enough evidence to claim that Georgia committed genocide in South Ossetia during the August war.

“You know, please excuse me if I’m a little bit doubtful about not only the process which led to that conclusion, but also the conclusion,” the U.S. Department of state spokesman said at a news briefing in Washington, when asked about the Russian investigation’s findings.

“That [genocide] didn’t happen,” he added.

He, however, also said that the United States was looking to see those who committed crimes to be held to account.

“We have people that are – have been and continue to look at the situation in South Ossetia as well as Abkhazia in the wake of the military actions that were taken there. That’s an ongoing look,” McCormack said. “And it doesn’t matter from our perspective who would be responsible for anything – any potential crimes that were committed. We’re just interested in seeing that anybody who committed any crimes would be held to account.”

Head of an investigative committee with the Russian prosecutor’s office said on December 23 that the committee had collected full data of 162 residents of South Ossetia who had been killed in the August war – figure far lower than initial 1,500-2,000 claimed by the Russian and South Ossetian officials during the August war.

Bastrikin said, that number was not important. “The important is that this action by Georgia was pre-planned, which gives us ground in the future to qualify actions of the Georgian military leadership and the Georgian army as aggression, which was directed at destroying the South Ossetian people as an ethnic group,” Bastrikin said.

Georgia said the allegation was Soviet-type propaganda to justify Russia’s full-scale invasion of the sovereign country.

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