British counter-terror police gathering evidence of potential war crimes in Ukraine say they have been struck by the "incredibly harrowing" material and eyewitness accounts from the frontline of the conflict. The Metropolitan Police's War Crimes Team, which is a unit within its counter-terrorism command (CTC), said it had already received around 50 referrals from people with a link to the UK, including those who have directly fled the conflict in the last two months since Russia began invading.
Scotland Yard announced last month that it was supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC) probe into alleged war crimes and appealed for anyone with direct evidence to come forward. Detective Chief Superintendent Dominic Murphy, providing an update on the evidence-gathering operation as CTC head of operations, said it would be up to the judicial authority to decide whether the material and testimonies gathered so far – which are being tested to a UK evidential standard – could be used to support a charge of genocide.
"What we're seeing is incredibly harrowing, beyond comprehension", he said. "In not far off 17 years in counterterrorism, [it is] some of the worst possible footage you could imagine seeing."
