Three NGOs on Monday announced a landmark legal case in Moscow against Russian mercenary group Wagner over the torture of a detainee in Syria, aiming to hold to account a murky fighting force with Kremlin links
Hopes of justice for victims of Assad regime
What is the Wagner group?
Since 2014, rights groups and media reports have linked the private military group to separatist insurrection in eastern Ukraine, and bolstering conflicts in Libya and the Central African Republic.
The group allegedly reels in law enforcement and military soldiers with salaries at least five times higher than their average income in Russia, according to the AFP news agency.
Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin is believed to finance the group. The European Union and the United States previously imposed sanctions on Prigozhin over meddling in Libya s conflict and US elections.
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Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, left, shows Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, around his factory outside St. Petersburg, Russia, September 20, 2010. (Alexei Druzhinin/Pool Photo via AP, File)
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) Three NGOs on Monday announced a landmark legal case in Moscow against Russian mercenary group Wagner over the torture of a detainee in Syria, aiming to hold to account a murky fighting force with Kremlin links.
The legal push against private military contractor Wagner Group follows a wave of torture-related cases in Europe against Syrian regime officials a decade into a punishing war whose tide was turned by Moscow’s military intervention in 2015.
Three NGOs have filed a legal case in Moscow against Russian private military contractor Wagner over the torture of a detainee in Syria, aiming to hold to account a murky fighting force with links to the Kremlin.
The legal push against Wagner Group on Monday follows a wave of torture-related cases in Europe against officials of the Syrian regime a decade into a punishing war whose tide was turned by Moscow’s military intervention in 2015.
Three prominent advocacy groups from France, Russia and Syria filed the criminal complaint against alleged members of the contractor outfit over the 2017 beheading of a man believed to have deserted from the Syrian army.