Six former law enforcement officers who called themselves the Goon Squad will be sentenced starting today in Mississippi, months after pleading guilty to federal civil rights crimes for torturing and sexually assaulting two black men and a third white man who has so far remained anonymous.

Over the next three days, the officers, who could each be sentenced to 10 years or more in prison, will appear in federal court in Jackson. Prosecutors are expected to detail the officers’ violent actions, and victims will have the opportunity to share their stories.

The officers could speak publicly for the first time if they choose to talk about their crimes or ask the judge for leniency.

Hunter Elward, who pleaded guilty to shooting one of the victims, will be sentenced first Tuesday morning. The remaining officers will then be sentenced at individual hearings.

The sheriff’s department in Rankin County, a suburban community just outside Jackson, came to national attention last year after five Rankin County deputies and a Richland Police detective raided the home of Eddie Parker, 36, and his friend, Michael Jenkins , 33, after a tip about suspicious activity.

The officers handcuffed and tortured the men by repeatedly shocking them with Tasers, beating them and sexually assaulting them with a sex toy. Mr. Elward stuck his gun in Mr. Jenkins’ mouth and shot him, shattering his jaw and nearly killing him.

“I felt like I was looking the devil in the eye,” Mr. Parker said at a news conference on Monday.

The officers destroyed evidence and, to justify the shooting, falsely claimed that Mr. Jenkins had pointed a BB gun at them, federal prosecutors said.

Three department deputies have also pleaded guilty in a separate incident, but prosecutors have so far provided few details about what happened. Prosecutors are expected to read a statement written by the victim in that case, 28-year-old Alan Schmidt.

So far, charges against officers in Rankin County have focused solely on these two incidents, but residents of poor parts of the county say the sheriff has routinely targeted them with a similar level of force.

Last November, The New York Times and Mississippi Today published an investigation showing that officers from the Rankin Sheriff’s Department, many of whom called themselves the Goon Squad, had been barging into homes and handcuffing people for nearly two decades. torture for information or confessions.

In their pursuit of drug arrests, officers rammed a stick into one man’s throat until he vomited, dripped molten metal onto another man’s skin and held down and beat people until they were bloody and bruised, according to dozens of people who said that they witnessed or experienced the raids.

Many of those who said they experienced violence filed lawsuits or formal complaints detailing their encounters with the department. A few said they contacted Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey directly but were ignored.

Sheriff Bailey, who has denied knowledge of the incidents, has faced calls to resign from local activists and the NAACP. He has said he will not resign.

Malcolm Holmes, a professor of criminal justice and sociology at the University of Wyoming, said the Goon Squad case would “become one that will find its way into the chronicles of history.”

“There is so much well-documented evidence that this is a pattern of behavior,” he said, noting that the case “revealed something that we have kept hidden for a long time, especially in rural America.”

Sentencing hearings this week are expected to reveal more details about the violence committed by Rankin County officers, including what happened to Mr. Schmidt.

In an interview with The Times and Mississippi Today last week, Mr. Schmidt spoke publicly for the first time about what happened in December 2022 when a Rankin County sheriff’s deputy pulled him over for driving with an expired license plate.

According to the federal complaint, deputies Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward and Daniel Opdyke arrived on the scene shortly afterward. Two other officers, including the one who stopped Mr. Schmidt, were also present during the arrest, Mr. Schmidt said. Neither has been criminally charged.

Mr. Schmidt said the officers accused him of stealing tools from his boss, and then Mr. Dedmon pressed a gun to his head and fired it into the air before threatening to dump his body in the Pearl River.

“I thought this was it,” Mr. Schmidt said. “I will never see my family again.”

Mr. Dedmon and the other deputies beat Mr. Schmidt and held his arm in a fire anthill before shocking him repeatedly with a Taser, Mr. Schmidt said.

Mr. Dedmon also pressed his genitals against the man’s face and bare buttocks as he screamed for help and kicked at the deputy, Mr. Schmidt said.

“It still haunts me all the time,” Mr. Schmidt said of the experience.

Rankin County District Attorney Bubba Bramlett has started that review and dismiss criminal cases involving members of the Goon Squad, his office confirmed last week, but Mr Bramlett declined to share details of the cases investigated.

State lawmakers introduced a bill in January that would expand oversight of law enforcement in Mississippi, allowing the state board that certifies officers to investigate and revoke the licenses of officers accused of misconduct, regardless of whether they face criminal charges. Lawmakers have said the Goon Squad and several other incidents of alleged police misconduct in Mississippi contributed to the bill’s passage.

The Mississippi House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill last week. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure in the coming weeks.

New York City officials are investigating a confrontation at a city-run shelter in Queens where police officers struck and used a stun gun on a Venezuelan migrant as he held his 1-year-old son.

Video footage obtained by The New York Times shows two police officers, who were called to the shelter Friday evening due to a dispute, trying to restrain the man, Yanny Cordero, 47, as he stands with his back against a closed elevator door in the shelter . , holding his child tightly in his arms.

One of the officers pulls out a yellow stun gun and appears to stun Mr. Cordero before punching him in the head, the video shows.

The officers continue to restrain Mr. Cordero after separating him from his son, pressing his head against a desk as they try to wrestle him to the ground. A third officer becomes involved and punches Mr. Cordero twice in the face before the officers subdue and arrest him.

“This is abuse, brother!” a man who recorded the video on his phone is heard shouting in Spanish. ‘Don’t hit him! Don’t hit him! Don’t hit him, brother! That’s abuse! Where are the human rights?”

Police responded to a call about an argument involving an intoxicated man threatening staff members. They said officers at the scene gave Mr. Cordero multiple warnings and commands to hand the child over to someone else.

Mr. Cordero said he did not drink that night because he had to work the next day. He said the dispute began when he returned to the shelter, in the Jamaican borough of Queens, with dinner for his family. A shelter worker punched him in the face near the elevators as he struggled to communicate in English, he said.

Mr. Cordero was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and violent conduct, obstruction of governmental administration and acting in a manner harmful to a child under 17 years of age. Police also arrested his wife, Andrea Parra, 23, who appears in the video. threw her body between her husband and the police officers.

The couple said that when they were arrested, their 1-year-old son, Yusneide, and their two other boys, ages 3 and 5, were taken by the city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services.

Mr Cordero and Ms Parra were released on Saturday evening, almost 24 hours after the altercation, and were reunited with their children on Monday evening. The family was taken to a shelter in Brooklyn.

“We are aware of an incident involving a family in our care at an emergency shelter in Jamaica, Queens, Friday evening,” a City Hall spokeswoman said in a statement. “The health and safety of all immigrants and long-time New Yorkers in our care – especially young children – is always the highest priority, and this matter is currently under investigation.”

Police said Yusneide was unharmed, but Mr Cordero said he believed the altercation had affected him.

“He was shaking and pooping and peeing on himself,” Mr. Cordero said in an interview.

Police did not respond to questions about whether they believed officers handled the situation appropriately and did not provide footage from their body-worn cameras.

It is not clear from the two-and-a-half-minute video what happened immediately before the clash at the shelter, one of dozens of city-run shelters housing the nearly 65,000 migrants in the city’s care.

As the number of migrants housed by the city has skyrocketed, city officials have begun imposing more restrictions on the hotels, shelters and tent dormitories where they are staying.

The city has imposed curfews at a handful of shelters following neighborhood complaints and several high-profile crimes involving migrants. Last month the police arrested a migrant for disorderly conduct at a giant tent shelter on Randall’s Island after a confrontation with police.

Mr. Cordero, an electrician in his home country who has worked construction jobs since arriving in New York, said he left the shelter Friday evening around 10 p.m. to buy food because his family did not like what was being served at the shelter. served. .

He said his wife was left with the three children in their room at the shelter, where they had been staying since December.

Mr. Cordero, who does not speak English, said that when he returned to the lobby with the food, a shelter employee near the elevators appeared to tell him in English that he could not take the food to the room, an unwritten shelter policy . to reduce contamination, city officials said. (Some migrants at the shelter said in interviews that staff members routinely threw away food and drinks found in rooms.)

Mr. Cordero said he used a translation app on his phone to tell the employee that he was going to the cafeteria to eat the meat and rice he bought and that his family would come to him.

Mr. Cordero said the employee called a colleague, who he said seemed to become hostile as Mr. Cordero had difficulty communicating with the phone app. The second shelter worker, Mr. Cordero said, suddenly punched him in the face.

Mr. Cordero said he did not hit back, but instead put his hands behind his back and began taunting the employee in Spanish to hit him again while he was defenseless, challenging him to a fight outside.

Andry Barreto, the Venezuelan migrant who shot the video, corroborated Mr. Cordero’s story, saying in an interview that he looked outside through a window into the shelter’s lobby and saw the worker hit Mr. Cordero.

City officials did not immediately respond to questions about the shelter workers’ behavior.

Mr Barreto, who is also the children’s godfather, said he went inside and started recording on his phone when the situation began to escalate.

The employees called the police, Mr. Cordero and Mr. Barreto said. Mr. Cordero’s wife, Ms. Parra, showed up with the three children around the time the police arrived, and she gave Yusneide to Mr. Cordero to hold.

At one point, Mr Cordero is heard screaming in the video as he clings to Yusneide, and as other migrants shout: “The baby! The baby!” in Spanish.

Mr. Cordero said police sedated him several times, but he said he didn’t feel much of it.

“I never raised my hand,” Mr. Cordero said. “I never told the police anything other than not to touch my child.”

Mr. Cordero and Ms. Parra said that after they were released from custody, they were only allowed to speak to their children via video call. The couple visited several city offices on Sunday to pick them up.

On Tuesday, Mr Cordero said he was happy his children were back, but was upset that they had been put in danger.

“I feel very sad because my children experienced something they should never have experienced,” Mr. Cordero said. “We are poor, but we have raised them well to avoid these kinds of spectacles.”

The International Criminal Court announced on Tuesday that it had issued arrest warrants for two senior Russian commanders on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, belongs to the world only permanent international criminal court with the power to investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. It was established as a ‘last resort’ and has a mandate to try particularly serious crimes that domestic courts are unable or unwilling to deal with. Because the cases are relatively rare, they are closely monitored by the international community.

Tuesday’s announcement marks a significant step forward in the ICC prosecutor’s case against Russia. Last year, the court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, on charges of Russia’s kidnapping and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. But this is the first time the prosecutor has filed charges specifically related to the way Russia conducted its war in Ukraine.

Russia has said it does not recognize the arrest warrants or the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and that it denies war crimes. And to be clear, it is unlikely that the commanders, Lieutenant General Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Admiral Viktor Nikolaevich Sokolov, will ever be arrested. The court relies on member states to make arrests because it has no police or enforcement powers of its own. So as long as the men remain in Russia or another friendly jurisdiction, it is unlikely they will end up in custody in The Hague.

But the arrest warrants themselves amount to a significant rebuke of Russia’s actions in Ukraine. They were welcomed on Tuesday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media: “Every perpetrator of such crimes must know that he will be held accountable. International justice takes time, but it is inevitable.”

And they could also set an interesting precedent, legal experts say — one that could have implications for the Gaza conflict and other wars.

What are the Russian officials accused of?

The arrest warrants relate to Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian power plants and other electrical infrastructure. Russia has heavily attacked Ukraine’s power grid in an attempt to “weaponize winter,” as one of my colleagues wrote last year. Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian electricity substations and other infrastructure have plunged cities into temporary darkness, left citizens without heat in cold winters and disrupted the Internet and other communications.

A power plant used by the civilian population would normally be protected by international law, which prohibits attacks on civilian infrastructure. It is possible that a power plant becomes a legitimate military target if, for example, military operations take place. But in that case, all attacks must follow the rule of proportionality: the damage to civilians resulting from the loss of power must not be excessive in relation to the expected military advantage.

The ICC arrest warrants accuse the two Russian commanders of committing war crimes by violating both norms.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the alleged attacks were directed against civilian targets,” the court said in its statement. “And for those installations that might have qualified as military targets at the relevant time, the expected incidental harm to the civilian population would clearly have been excessive in relation to the expected military benefit.”

The arrest warrants also allege that the series of attacks on Ukraine’s power grid together constitute a crime against humanity, indicating that prosecutors are looking at the overall conduct of the war as well as the legality of individual incidents.

“They’ve brought them together in an indictment for crimes against humanity, making it clear that they don’t think these are just individual bad acts,” said Rebecca Hamilton, a law professor at American University. Because that specific crime requires the attacks to be related to state policy, the crimes against humanity indictment says, “No, this was part of a systematic plan by the state to wage the war in this way, harming civilians.” ‘ ”

Proportionality is important

It is particularly significant that the arrest warrants allege that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have caused disproportionate harm to civilians, said Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict, because experts often disagree about what the law of proportionality. required, and there is little international case law interpreting this.

“We don’t really have a good precedent of someone saying, ‘Look, here’s an ironclad international court saying that someone is criminally liable for a disproportionate attack,’” she said.

“There are three big questions here: what counts as military benefit, what counts as harm to the civilian population, and then how to weigh them against each other,” Dill said. “And actually each of these questions is the subject of very intense doctrinal debates.”

These legal questions have recently come to the fore during Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

The Israeli army has heavily bombed the narrow, densely populated enclave and razed entire neighborhoods to the ground. According to the local health ministry, the war has now killed more than 30,000 people, or about one in 73 Gazans, the majority of them women and children. And that toll is likely to rise as Israel’s restrictions on aid entering the region contribute to a spiraling humanitarian crisis. The United Nations has warned of an impending famine in northern Gaza.

Israel has said it follows international law and does not target civilians or carry out attacks that cause disproportionate harm to them.

The exact details of the arrest warrants against the Russian officials are secret, but the ICC said it took the step to announce them because “behavior similar to that in the current situation” is underway, and it hopes that publishing of the arrest warrants could help prevent further crimes.

That referred to Russia’s ongoing actions in Ukraine, Fadi El Abdallah, the head of the court’s public affairs department, told me.

However, some legal experts believe that the arrest warrants could also be relevant to other conflicts around the world, indicating that the court will prosecute these types of attacks on civilian infrastructure.

“It sends the message to the conflict actors in Ukraine, but it sends that same message to conflict actors in every war around the world, including, right now, first and foremost Gaza,” Hamilton said.

The ICC prosecutor has a investigation opened in the Gaza conflict, and in Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 last year, which Israeli authorities say killed around 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of some 250 others.

“The more clarity we have about what a disproportionate attack looks like, the greater the deterrent effect that the principle of proportionality can have in an individual context,” Dill said. “So it is really relevant for Gaza that this is on the ICC’s radar”

In a national judicial system, a single arrest warrant (or more precisely, a press release about arrest warrants) might not have much of a deterrent effect. Legal interpretations must survive trials and appeals before they can have significant influence.

But international law often has its greatest effects by shaping norms and public opinion, rather than through direct enforcement, independent experts say.

Trials in international courts, especially criminal courts, are rare. Since its founding about twenty years ago, the ICC has handled only 31 cases fallen, although some of these had more than one defendant. Previous tribunals were temporary and limited to individual conflicts, such as those in the United States Rwanda And the former Yugoslavia.

Trials that do occur last for years, during which time conflicts may persist. Signals about the court’s possible future interpretations or decisions can therefore have a persuasive effect, even if they are provisional and non-binding.

“I think it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the work that an international court can do, and in particular the ICC, to only look at that moment when you actually put your suspect in the dock,” Hamilton said.

“They are an international institution whose mandate includes having this expressive role, and signaling to the world at large what is appropriate behavior, thereby sending the message that there will be accountability if the law is not followed. And that is the message that goes beyond each individual case.”

The International Criminal Court announced on Tuesday that it had issued arrest warrants for two senior Russian commanders, accusing them of committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, belongs to the world only permanent international criminal court with the power to investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. It was established as a ‘last resort’ and has a mandate to try particularly serious crimes that domestic courts are unable or unwilling to deal with. Because the cases are relatively rare, they are closely monitored by the international community.

Tuesday’s announcement marks a significant step forward in the ICC prosecutor’s case against Russia. Last year the court issued warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, on charges related to the Russian kidnapping and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. But this is the first time the prosecutor has filed charges specifically related to the way Russia conducted its war in Ukraine.

Russia has said it does not recognize the arrest warrants or the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and that it denies war crimes. And to be clear, it is unlikely that the commanders, Lieutenant General Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Admiral Viktor Nikolaevich Sokolov, will ever be arrested. The court relies on member states to make arrests because it has no police or enforcement powers of its own. So as long as the men remain in Russia or another friendly jurisdiction, it is unlikely they will end up in custody in The Hague.

But the arrest warrants themselves amount to a significant rebuke of Russia’s actions in Ukraine. They were welcomed on Tuesday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media: “Every perpetrator of such crimes must know that he will be held accountable. International justice takes time, but it is inevitable.”

And they could also set an interesting precedent, legal experts say — one that could have implications for the Gaza conflict and other wars.

What are the Russian officials accused of?

The arrest warrants relate to Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian power plants and other electrical infrastructure. Russia has heavily attacked Ukraine’s power grid in an attempt to “turn winter into a weapon,” as one of my colleagues said wrote last year. Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian electricity substations and other infrastructure have plunged cities into temporary darkness, left citizens without heat in cold winters and disrupted the Internet and other communications.

A power plant used by the civilian population would normally be protected by international law, which prohibits attacks on civilian infrastructure. It is possible that a power plant becomes a legitimate military target if, for example, military operations take place. But in that case, all attacks must follow the rule of proportionality: the damage to civilians resulting from the loss of power must not be excessive in relation to the expected military advantage.

The ICC arrest warrants accuse the two Russian commanders of committing war crimes by violating both norms.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the alleged attacks were directed against civilian targets,” the court said in its statement. “And for those installations that might have qualified as military targets at the relevant time, the expected incidental harm to the civilian population would clearly have been excessive in relation to the expected military benefit.”

The arrest warrants also allege that the series of attacks on Ukraine’s power grid together constitute a crime against humanity, indicating that prosecutors are looking at the overall conduct of the war as well as the legality of individual incidents.

“They’ve brought them together in an indictment for crimes against humanity, making it clear that they don’t think these are just individual bad acts,” said Rebecca Hamilton, a law professor at American University. Because that specific crime requires the attacks to be related to state policy, the crimes against humanity indictment says, “No, this was part of a systematic plan by the state to wage the war in this way, harming civilians.” ‘ ”

Proportionality is important

It is particularly significant that the arrest warrants allege that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have caused disproportionate harm to civilians, said Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict, because experts often disagree about what the law of proportionality. required, and there is little international case law interpreting this.

“We don’t really have a good precedent of someone saying, ‘Look, here’s an ironclad international court saying that someone is criminally liable for a disproportionate attack,’” she said.

“There are three big questions here: what counts as military benefit, what counts as harm to the civilian population, and then how to weigh them against each other,” Dill said. “And actually each of these questions is the subject of very intense doctrinal debates.”

That legal questions have recently come to the fore during Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

The Israeli army did heavily bombed the narrow, densely populated enclave and used controlled demolition destroy entire neighborhoods. The war is now more than 30,000 people killedor roughly one in 73 Gazans, the majority of them women and children, according to the local Ministry of Health. And that toll is likely to rise as Israel’s restrictions on aid entering the region contribute to a spiral humanitarian crisis. The United Nations has warned of an impending famine in northern Gaza.

Israel has said it follows international law and does not target civilians or carry out attacks that cause disproportionate harm to them.

The exact details of the arrest warrants against the Russian officials are secret, but the ICC said it took the step to announce them because “behavior similar to that in the current situation” is underway, and it hopes that publishing of the arrest warrants could help prevent further crimes.

That referred to Russia’s ongoing actions in Ukraine, Fadi El Abdallah, the head of the court’s public affairs department, told me.

However, some legal experts believe that the arrest warrants could also be relevant to other conflicts around the world, indicating that the court will prosecute these types of attacks on civilian infrastructure.

“It sends the message to the conflict actors in Ukraine, but it sends that same message to conflict actors in every war around the world, including, right now, first and foremost Gaza,” Hamilton said.

The ICC prosecutor has a investigation opened in the Gaza conflict, and in Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 last year, which Israeli authorities say killed around 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of some 250 others.

“The more clarity we have about what a disproportionate attack looks like, the greater the deterrent effect that the principle of proportionality can have in an individual context,” Dill said. “So it is really relevant for Gaza that this is on the ICC’s radar”

In a national judicial system, a single arrest warrant (or more precisely, a press release about arrest warrants) might not have much of a deterrent effect. Legal interpretations must survive trials and appeals before they can have significant influence.

But international law often has its greatest effects by shaping norms and public opinion, rather than through direct enforcement, independent experts say.

Trials in international courts, especially criminal courts, are rare. Since its founding about twenty years ago, the ICC has handled only 31 cases fallen, although some of these had more than one defendant. Previous tribunals were temporary and limited to individual conflicts, such as those in the United States Rwanda And the former Yugoslavia.

Trials that do occur last for years, during which time conflicts may persist. Signals about the court’s possible future interpretations or decisions can therefore have a persuasive effect, even if they are provisional and non-binding.

“I think it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the work that an international court can do, and in particular the ICC, to only look at that moment when you actually put your suspect in the dock,” Hamilton said.

“They are an international institution whose mandate includes having this expressive role, and signaling to the world at large what is appropriate behavior, thereby sending the message that there will be accountability if the law is not followed. And that is the message that goes beyond each individual case.”

A Uvalde city investigator said Thursday that despite the many documented failures of more than two dozen city police officers who were among those who responded to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting, no punishment was warranted because the officers acted in good faith and has not violated department policy.

At a special meeting called to announce the results of a two-year investigation, the investigator, Jesse Prado, a retired Austin detective, also recommended that then-acting police chief Lt. Mariano Pargas Jr. be acquitted of any misconduct. . Mr. Pargas, who led the force that day while the chief was on vacation, had resigned amid a firestorm of criticism from city residents.

“There were many failures,” Mr. Prado said, but he added that “there was no evidence of serious acts of misconduct that were in direct violation of Uvalde Police Department policies.”

At the end of his 45-minute presentation, Mr. Prado walked out, angering relatives of the victims who had shown up to express their outrage. The families have continued to demand transparency and accountability for a lengthy delay in confronting the shooter.

“It was for their safety; it was not for the safety of children,” Kim Mata-Rubio, whose daughter Lexi was among the murdered children, shouted from the conference room over the police officers. “Are these the people you want to respond to your loved ones? Guaranteed, it isn’t.”

She added: “Do what’s right. End them.”

The shooting occurred on May 24, 2022, when a teenage gunman climbed over a low fence and entered the school through what turned out to be an unlocked door. Armed with an AR-15-style rifle, he fired a barrage of bullets into two connected classrooms, killing 19 children and two teachers and wounding 17 other people. More than 370 officers from local, state and federal agencies gathered at the scene, but after initially being shot at, officers only later attempted to confront the shooter.

The city’s findings, included in a report released Thursday, are the third major investigation into the delayed police response. Two previous investigations by a state commission and the Justice Department agreed that a perfect storm of failed leadership, poor decision-making and a lack of police training led to officers having to wait 77 minutes to confront the gunman who committed suicide in two had entrenched classrooms.

Other important studies are still pending. Local district attorney Christina Mitchell has convened a grand jury to hear testimony to determine whether criminal charges should be filed against any of the officers. The Texas Department of Public Safety has not yet released its findings.

The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two top Russian officers, charging them with war crimes in Ukraine for targeting civilians and destroying crucial energy infrastructure.

The two officers – Lieutenant General Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Admiral Viktor Nikolaevich Sokolov – are accused in a court statement of being personally responsible for numerous missile attacks by their forces on power stations and substations in multiple locations between October 2022 and March 2023. .

The winter attacks were defined as war crimes because they were largely directed against civilian targets, causing “excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects,” the court said.

General Kobylash is a senior Russian Air Force officer who commanded the country’s Long-Range Air Force during that period, while Admiral Sokolov was commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at the time.

The two are also charged with crimes against humanity for “intentionally causing great suffering” and serious physical or mental injury among the general population.

The court statement said that full details of the new arrest warrants would not be made public to protect witnesses and ensure further investigation. The International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, is the only permanent international court with jurisdiction to deal with genocide, wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Although the Russians have repeatedly bombed civilian structures and killed countless civilians, lawyers familiar with the ICC investigation suggested that prosecutors chose this particular period because the evidentiary weight and clarity of the command structure known at the time could make charges easier. prove than many others.

This is the second time the court has issued arrest warrants in connection with the war in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. A year ago, judges issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights. rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the kidnapping and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Likewise, the limited scope of these charges, which drew criticism at the time, was a reflection of the prosecutor’s strategy of choosing a manageable case with a strong trail of public evidence, attorneys familiar with the case said at the time.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine welcomed the arrest warrants on Tuesday. “Any Russian commander who orders attacks on Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure must know that justice will be served,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

Ukraine’s Attorney General Andriy Kostin was quoted by The Associated Press as saying the crimes involved were committed “on a large scale,” far from the front lines and without a clear military purpose.

The judges in The Hague called the Russian attacks disproportionate. Even if power installations were considered military objectives at the time, their statement said, the expected “civil damage would have been clearly excessive in relation to the expected military benefit.”

The International Criminal Court has no independent enforcement powers and is dependent on other countries to make arrests. It is therefore unlikely that General Kobylash and Admiral Sokolov will be arrested or tried.

Still, supporters of the court say the arrest warrants are more than political gestures because they show victims they are not being overlooked. And the arrest warrants can become the building blocks for a broader legal framework after the war.

Officials in Moscow have denied committing war crimes in Ukraine and have called the ICC’s arrest warrants and investigations pointless.

Although domestic courts in Ukraine have held some trials of Russians related to the war, none involved top officials.

Ukraine has not formally joined the ICC, which has 124 members, but has granted the court jurisdiction over its territory. Russia is also not a member, but the court can focus on crimes committed by Russian citizens on Ukrainian territory.