A TEAM OF Irish lawyers along with a number of former Irish Defence Forces military personnel and ex-gardaí are in Ukraine, advising local war crimes investigators as they examine a catalogue of atrocities.
They are part of a multi-disciplinary European Union Advisory Mission Ukraine (EUAM) advising the Ukrainians as they probe human rights abuses during the war following the invasion on 24 February in 2022.
One of those people is Galway lawyer Aonghus Kelly who has made it his life’s work to investigate war criminals – having worked in the Balkans, Cambodia and the Middle East.
He spoke to The Journal about his work and what it has been like to be based inside Ukraine as the war raged around him.
Kelly had just returned from a visit to war-ravaged Dnipro. His job in Ukraine is to give the legal tools and advice to local law enforcement as they get a headstart on the cases that will form an international case against Russia.
He defines his role as “bridging the gap” between civil police forces and other agencies who work on the ground collecting evidence, and the prosecutors who will ultimately bring the cases.
He lives in Kyiv and was there as the city was attacked by Russian missiles and drones.
Kelly said identifying the individual criminal acts could take decades.
Many of the prosecutions will likely happen in absentia as the suspects are in locations, beyond the frontlines, where they cannot be readily arrested.
He would not be drawn on what will happen in the future to get those suspects to justice but in the past war criminals have been arrested by specialist military teams, particularly in the Balkans.
“The things that are being done right now will be still be looked at, in five, ten 15 years, because this is going to take a long time to deal with all these criminal cases,” he said.
This was a regular theme in his war crimes investigations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Cambodia – dealing with evidence gathered years or decades before.
“You’re looking at these cases, and you’re looking at information obtained by people, often by NGOs, often by other international organisations at a time of conflict.
“But yet, you have to try and do the best job you can so that information is as useful and credible in an investigation and prosecution many years if not decades later.”
Kelly is originally from Galway and studied law initially in University College Cork.
He spent time working as a solicitor in Ireland but had an interest in international law and human rights abuse cases and worked in a law firm specialising in that in the UK.
He worked on a diverse mix of Palestinian and Iraqi cases as well as the case of Iraqi man Baha Mousa who was kicked to death by British soldiers in 2003. In that incident a number of Mousa’s colleagues were also tortured by the UK military members.
Ultimately he would make his way to work on international prosecutions of war crimes but also international organised crime probes. He dealt with investigations into human trafficking and organ trafficking as well as terrorism and drug trafficking.
He later returned home to Ireland and worked as Executive Director of Irish Rule of Law International which focuses on Irish legal professionals working on global law projects.
A lot of their work is focused on freeing people across the world who have been wrongfully imprisoned.
“They are a great organisation and do amazing work,” he said.
It was in Kosovo he met his present boss at EUAM Ukraine, Irish citizen, Andrew Carney.
In October The Journal met both men in Kyiv where they were among a meeting of Irish nationals based in Ukraine. At that stage Kelly was in Ukraine having taken up the role in 2022.
He laughed when we ask him if he ever thought as a law student in Cork that years later he would be in Kyiv investigating suspected Russian war criminals.
“It is just all luck, happenstance. Just things come along, things fall into place,” he added.
However there were two events that shaped his path: a talk by US death row law campaigner Bryan Stevenson in Galway and a visit to the Palestinian territories.
That visit to Palestine was “an eye opening” experience and led Kelly towards his current role.
“The sad thing I think about the Palestinian side of things in many ways is this is not something that’s blown up all of a sudden, and this brutality and terribleness is not something that’s happened just now, this is ongoing for decades, many decades.”
He is now working and living in Kyiv surrounded in the European mission by a large number of Irish experts.
He believes there is no set reason why there are so many people from Ireland working in the war crimes investigations ecosystem.
“We’re kind of an emigrant people, it’s kind of in our history to kind of go wander I think,” he said.
He has made a life for himself in the Ukrainian capital – occasionally travelling out by train to Poland to visit home.
The regular bombing raids by Russian missiles on Kyiv and the traumatic reality of a country at war is an ever-present reality for Kelly.
He said he sees the impact of the war on his Ukrainian friends and colleagues at work.
Kelly said it is important to realise that he could, if he wished, leave and go home to Ireland and leave it behind but that the local people he works alongside cannot.
His experience of Kyiv is that while life continues there is the constant reminder for the Ukrainians who have stayed behind that the country is at war. He said there is a burden on them as families have been broken up and relatives have had to flee the country.
Kelly is anxious to stress that the war did not start two years ago but began with the Russian seizure of Crimea and the eastern regions some ten years ago.
“I think for me it’s a huge honour for us to be here and to work with our Ukrainian colleagues.
“I wish and hope we could do more, that’s the thing. And then there’s always potential to do more and I think we can do more and need to do more,” he said.
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