The national prosecutor, Dariusz Barski, announced that he would send Polish experts to Bucha, incl. pathomorphologists and ballistics specialists. “We have very important testimonies and other evidence confirming that war crimes and crimes against humanity are taking place in Ukraine”, said Barski.

Barski commented that there is currently an international – Polish-Ukrainian-Lithuanian – investigative team that is jointly conducting proceedings in terms of war crimes in Ukraine.

“The prosecutor general of Ukraine asked the prosecutor general of Poland for help in this case and we have initiated such a procedure. We were legitimized by the provisions of the Polish criminal law to initiate such investigation”, explained Barski.

The prosecutor noted that Poland established a special team at the level of the National Prosecutor’s Office, and the investigation is conducted by the Mazowiecki Department of the National Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption. On that base, Polish experts will go to Bucha.

“The Ukrainians asked us for help in documenting the trial of the crime in Bucha. Polish experts will go to the crime scene, incl. pathomorphologists and specialists in ballistics. The evidence collected there will be able to be used not only in the investigation conducted by the joint team that I mentioned but also in other proceedings that have been or will be initiated in this case by international organizations.

The evidence collected by the Polish prosecutor’s office may be used in the future by the Criminal Court in The Hague, which also initiated an investigation into that case.

“As part of the investigation, we are cooperating with the Hague Tribunal. The cooperation was initiated by meetings with Karim Khan, the criminal prosecutor from The Hague on the Polish-Ukrainian border and in Warsaw”, said the national prosecutor.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński