GROZNY. April 21 (Interfax-AVN) - The Chechen authorities should resolve the issue of opening a laboratory for body identification in the nearest future, Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammerberg said.
Answering a question from Interfax in Grozny airport on Monday, Hammerberg said this is an acute problem. When he visited Chechnya a year ago, he thrashed it out with the leadership of the republic and felt that the matter must be settled in the nearest future.
Hammerberg said that the Chechen government assigned certain funds for purchasing the equipment and many organizational issues have been settled.
He said that the attitude of the Council of Europe remains unchanged and amounts to readiness to support the implementation of the project.
All the equipment required for the lab is very sophisticated and so will be the future work of the laboratory - to excavate massive burials, exhume and identify bodies, Hammerberg said.
The Council of Europe is ready to share the experience accumulated in different parts of the world. It knows how different countries have resolved these issues and this experience will be beneficial for the laboratory, he said.
Even though this is a joint project of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and the governments of Russia and Chechnya, only the Russian side should be dealing with it, Hammerberg said.