A/HRC/4/42
page 15
incorporate the provisions of the Model Law into national legislation. This CIS-IPA Model Law
includes an expansion of the definition of mercenarism to cover non-material motivations; the
inclusion in the definition of nationals contracted by foreign actors to undertake mercenary
activities in their own countries; the explicit exclusion of peacekeeping activities from the
definition of a mercenary; and acknowledgement of poor socio-economic conditions as social
roots of mercenarism and thus the implications for adopting related measures to combat the
problem (see E/CN.4/2006/11/Add.1, para. 19). The Working Group was informed by one
Working Group member that in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, the respective Governments
have established intergovernmental working groups to study and gradually adapt provisions of
the CIS-IPA Model Law into national legislation.
41.
The Working Group notes that legal proceedings have been initiated by the
General Procurator of the Russian Federation against a group of Russian citizens who were
extradited from the United States military base in Guantánamo Bay. These individuals, who had
allegedly illegally crossed the border to Afghanistan in 2000, were reportedly captured among
Taliban forces by Afghanis, who handed them to the United States forces. These Russian
“Talibes” originated from different ethnic backgrounds and regions of the Russian Federation:
Bashkortostan (Volga area), Kabardino-Balkaria (North Caucasus), Tatarstan (Eastern Central
area), Chelyabinsk (Central Siberia), and from Tyumen region (Northern-Eastern Siberia).21
42.
With regard to the situation in the Chechen Republic, Russian Federation, a report from a
Russian journal stated that among “foreign mercenaries” captured or killed in Chechnya during
2006 there were citizens of Algeria, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, the United Arab
Emirates, Pakistan, the Syrian Arab Republic, the United States of America, Tajikistan, Tunisia,
Turkey and Ukraine.22
43.
The Working Group was informed that 12 citizens of Azerbaijan were imprisoned after
standing trial on allegations of committing crimes of mercenarism. The individuals were
sentenced to various length of prison terms, though most of them insisted they had participated
in “jihad” for ideological reasons and did not receive material compensation.
44.
In Kyrgyzstan a number of foreign citizens (including those of Uzbekistan) were placed
on trial and sentenced for crimes committed in a “mercenary” capacity by forming unauthorized
military formations within the territory of Uzbekistan (not affiliated with the Government of
Uzbekistan) and having entered the territory of the Batkent region of Kyrgyzstan in 1999-2000.
In Uzbekistan a national security service investigated activities of a number of individuals
(Uzbek citizens) who participated in military operations in Afghanistan with the troops of
Talibes.
21
By 15 December 2006, seven of the eight alleged mercenaries had been extradited to Russia,
while one remained held by the United States for further investigations.
22
Military Diplomat Journal, Russia, December 2003.
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