The war crime investigation into the death of Pierre Zakrzewski, a French-Irish image reporter for Fox News in Ukraine, was handed over to investigative judges at a Paris court in early April, a judicial source said on Wednesday.
Pierre Zakshevsky, 55, was covering the Russian offensive in Ukraine when he was killed on March 14, 2022 in Gorenka, northwest of the Ukrainian capital, along with his accompanying Ukrainian producer, Alexandra Kuvshinova, 24, when the car they were in , was killed. the next one was shot.
Given the journalist’s French nationality, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat), the body competent to investigate such crimes in France, opened a preliminary investigation in March 2022 into “intentional endangerment of the life of a person protected by international law.” and “a deliberate attack on a civilian not directly participating in hostilities.”
Ongoing investigations tasked with the Office Central for the Combating of Crimes against Humanity, Genocide and War Crimes (OCLCH, its French acronym) are aimed at identifying those responsible for the shooting and establishing the circumstances of the attack.
Zakrzewski had a three-decade career as a journalist and former war photographer and had previously covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
“Pierre used his camera to tell the stories of the people he met clearly and truthfully, even when it was difficult or dangerous,” his wife Michelle Ross-Stanton said in a statement sent to AFP.
Pierre Zakrzewski’s mother, Marie-Ange Zakrzewska, emphasized “the freedom of his spirit, his great compassion and his boundless energy.”
Since the start of the war in Ukraine and the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Pnat has opened a total of ten investigations into war crimes allegedly committed against French citizens. Three of these investigations concern the deaths of journalists while carrying out their professional activities.
The investigation into the death of Pierre Zakrzewski is the first to be entrusted to investigative judges.
32-year-old journalist Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff from the French television company BFMTV was killed by shrapnel on May 30, 2022, while carrying out a humanitarian mission near Severodonetsk, in the east of the country.
A year later, on May 9, 2023, 32-year-old Arman Soldin, an AFP video coordinator in Ukraine, was killed in a Russian Grad missile attack near Chasov Yar, a Ukrainian town near Bakhmut, the main battlefield between Russian and Ukrainian forces since then. . the beginning of the conflict.
Other investigations concern acts committed against French citizens, mainly in the weeks after the start of the war, namely in Mariupol in southern Ukraine and in the Kyiv and Chernihiv region in the north of the country.
“When international judicial cooperation is effective on the ground, the ability of French justice to act quickly, taking into account the context of war, makes it possible to effectively combat impunity,” said a lawyer for Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Franceinfo, Emmanuel Daoud.
According to RSF, eleven journalists have been killed while covering the conflict in Ukraine since February 2022.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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