TSKHINVALI. Sept 26 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Prosecutor's Office Investigative Committee (POIC) has gathered evidence of the crimes committed in South Ossetia, which lead to the conclusion that the Georgian aggression was aimed at extermination of Ossetians, POIC Director Alexander Bastrykin told Interfax on Thursday.
"The investigation that was carried out leads to a clear conclusion: that the aim of the aggressors was to fully destroy the ethnic group of Ossetians who lived in South Ossetia," Bastrykin said.
The documents obtained in the course of the investigation have shown that "after the aggression Georgian authorities were going to create a puppet government here [in South Ossetia]," he said.
"The procedural work carried out by POIC officers, who documented all facts regarding the Ossetian events, will allow international judicial bodies to make a legally correct, qualified and impartial assessment of the scale of what happened and to decide to bring those responsible, wherever they might be, to justice," Bastrykin said.
"We know there have been historical precedents," Bastrykin said.
He said that on Thursday he had a meeting with North Caucasus military investigators in Tskhinvali, which was also attended by the South Ossetia Prosecutor General, the local KGB chief and other security officials.
He said that Igor Sklyarov, head of the North Caucasus Military District military investigations department, who made a progress report on the investigation of the crimes committed by Georgian military against Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, said in particular that the stage of gathering and documenting facts in South Ossetia proper has been completed.
"The task given by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to document the consequences of the attack by Georgian formations on South Ossetia and to record all procedural and criminal acts by Georgian military has been successfully accomplished," Bastrykin said.
"POIC acted as a key law enforcement structure, which undertook to gather evidence of Georgian crimes for their further objective, full and comprehensive presentation to the world community," Bastrykin said.
"Investigators now have full objective evidence for future criminal prosecution of specific individuals responsible for these crimes," he said.