Two years after the death in Ukraine of Pierre Zakrzewski, a Franco-Irish journalist from Fox News killed on March 14, 2022 while covering the Russian offensive, the investigations were entrusted at the beginning of April to investigating judges from the Paris court , a judicial source said on Wednesday.
Pierre Zakrzewski, a 55-year-old cameraman, was killed in Horenka, northwest of the capital kyiv, with a Ukrainian woman who accompanied him, Oleksandra Kuvshynova. Their vehicle had been the target of gunfire, Fox News Media reported at the time. According to the first elements collected in the months following the events, the journalist was directly targeted by the shots, indicated a source close to the case.
An investigation opened in March 2022
Given the French nationality of the journalist, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT) opened an investigation in March 2022 for war crimes, in this case "willful attack on the life of a person protected by international law" and " deliberate attack against a civilian who is not directly participating in hostilities.”
The investigations, carried out by the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes Against Humanity, Genocides and War Crimes (OCLCH), aim to identify the perpetrators of the shooting and determine the circumstances of this attack.
A judicial source therefore indicated to AFP on Wednesday that a judicial investigation for war crimes against X had been opened on April 5 and entrusted to investigating judges.
Eleven journalists dead in Ukraine
“Pierre (Zakrzewski) used his camera to tell the stories of the people he met with clarity and truth, even if it was difficult or dangerous,” Michelle Ross-Stanton, his wife, testified in a press release. His mother, Marie-Ange Zakrzewska, highlighted “his freedom of spirit, his great empathy and his limitless energy”.
The lawyers for Pierre Zakrzewski's family, Clémence Witt and Anaïs Sarron, welcomed “the judicial cooperation (which) worked extremely well within the framework of the preliminary investigation”. “This second phase (…) will allow his loved ones (…) to participate more actively in the ongoing investigations.”
“When international judicial cooperation on the ground is effective, the capacity of French justice to move quickly given the war context makes it possible to fight effectively against impunity,” reacted Me Emmanuel Daoud, lawyer for Reporters Without Borders ( RSF). According to RSF, eleven journalists died while covering the war in Ukraine.
Since the launch of the Russian offensive on February 24, 2022, the PNAT has opened a total of ten investigations into war crimes allegedly committed against French people.
Three of these investigations concern journalists killed in the exercise of their profession. The one on the death of Pierre Zakrzewski is the first to be entrusted to investigating judges.
Several French people killed
A BFMTV journalist, Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, then aged 32, was killed by shrapnel on May 30, 2022 while following a humanitarian mission near Sieverodonetsk, in the east of the country.
A year later, on May 9, 2023, AFP video coordinator in Ukraine, Arman Soldin, 32, was killed during a Russian rocket attack near the besieged town of Bakhmut. The latter accompanied, with five AFP reporters, Ukrainian soldiers on the most active front of the war at the time.
The other PNAT investigations concern acts committed against French nationals in Ukraine, mainly in the weeks following the outbreak of war, notably in Mariupol (south), the Kiev region and Cherniguiv (north).
One concerns the death of two French humanitarian workers on February 2, 2024 during a strike on Beryslav, a town on the bank of the Dnieper River (south), near the front line.
The French Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office has universal jurisdiction in matters of war crimes and can launch investigations into acts committed outside French territory if a victim is French.
“We are opening investigations to ultimately establish responsibilities and for there to be trials, before one French jurisdiction or another,” assured the anti-terrorism prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, in September 2022 after a trip to the region of kyiv.