92001E2110

WRITTEN QUESTION P-2110/01

by Olivier Dupuis (TDI) to the Council

(12 July 2001)

Subject: Georgia/Chechnya: Russo and Robrillard affairs

On 16 October 2000, Antonio Russo, a correspondent of Radio Radicale (Italy) who was covering the war in Chechnya from Tbilisi, was found murdered a few kilometres from the Georgian capital. Since then, despite repeated requests, no data have emerged to shed light on the circumstances of his death or make it possible to track down his murderers. Recently it was learned that on 28 November 2000, a few weeks after the murder of Antonio Russo, Jan Robrillard, a French national and legal adviser in the human rights field for the OSCE mission in Tbilisi, had been found dead in his apartment. It emerged from the inquest that he died of suffocation following a gas leak. Well-informed sources state that Antonio Russo and Jan Robrillard knew each other and met regularly.

On the basis of these conclusions which are, at the least, disturbing it may reasonably be supposed that Jan Robrillard may have been the person to whom Antonio Russo had entrusted the video cassettes and documents in his possession, asking him to keep charge

of them and translate and duplicate them Some days before he was murdered in Tbilisi, Russo had told his mother on the telephone that he had come into possession of certain frightening and irrefutable proofs concerning the violence and massacres perpetrated in Chechnya by the armed forces of the Russian Federation and the use by those forces of weapons forbidden under the Geneva Conventions. These proofs were not found at Russo's house in Tbilisi.

Is the Council aware of these circumstances? Is it in possession of exact information concerning the inquest into Jan Robrillard's death and its conclusions? If so, what initiatives has it taken, including any with the Georgian, French or Italian authorities, to establish the possible links between the two cases and, therefore, to shed light on both?

Reply

(27 November 2001)

It was with great sorrow that the Council learnt of the untimely deaths of Antonio Russo and Jan Robrillard. Both of these men had chosen to work in important and difficult areas, and had demonstrated the strength of their commitment. Both of them clearly commanded the respect of their colleagues.

In the months since news of these two deaths became public, the Council has placed its faith in the Italian, French and Georgian police to investigate the surrounding circumstances. Representatives of EU Member States in Tbilisi, as well as the Commission Delegation there, maintain a constant watch on events, but the Council has not received any detailed information concerning the conduct or the outcome of enquiries.

The Council is certainly not in a position to comment on rumour or conjecture.

What is certain is the Council's public and vocal stance against violence on journalists, and in favour of the freedom of the media. In recent months, there has unfortunately been no shortage of occasions for the Council to restate its commitments on these questions.

As long as incidents of violence on journalists and restrictions on the freedom of the media continue in different countries, so the Council will continue to use all the channels of political dialogue available to it to draw attention to such abuses, and to press for them to cease.