The Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe has criticized South Ossetia and Georgia's attempts in tracking people who went missing during the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
"Regrettably, there have been serious shortcomings in the process of clarifying the fate of missing persons and ensuring accountability for the perpetrators of illegal acts", Thomas Hammarberg said.
An expert report commissioned by Hammarberg looked into investigations into cases of ill-treatment and reports of missing people during and after the armed conflict.
"The report shows that although there have been serious allegations implicating the involvement of law enforcement officials in certain cases of disappearances which occurred after the August 2008 conflict, the operational conduct of the investigation was not kept separate from the service to which the officials implicated belonged to," he continued.
"The supervision of the investigation should be transferred away from regional prosecutorial authorities and the operational conduct of the work should be moved away from the police in the areas concerned", the commissioner said.
PARIS, September 29 (RIA Novosti)
