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London financier demands Georgia war crimes trial
Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter9 Oct 2008
A London hedge fund manager has vowed to use "every penny" of his huge fortune to sue the Georgian government for alleged war crimes over the death of his mother in South Ossetia.
Alan Sipols is compiling a dossier of evidence ahead of a historic legal action under human rights laws. His mother and aunt were killed when a mortar shell exploded in the garden of the family home after war broke out in the region this summer.
Mr Sipols, 38, told the Evening Standard: "I will spend every penny I have, every minute and every hour I have, to seek justice for my mother, my aunt and the people of Ossetia. People need to know what really happened in my homeland. People in London and the world have not been told the truth."
The multi-millionaire, who lives in St John's Wood, has sent fragments of shrapnel to laboratories in Europe for testing to prove the shell was fired by Georgian troops.
He hopes his legal action will see Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, a close ally of the US and British governments, stand trial along with army commanders for war crimes.
Georgia invaded its breakaway region of South Ossetia, next to the Russian border, on 8 August. In response, Russian troops crossed the border and after five days of fighting forced the Georgians to withdraw.
Mr Sipols told how he texted his mother Diana frantically in the hours before she died, trying to reassure her as she came under bombardment in South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali.
His final message, sent at 1.47pm London time on 9 August, read: "Cannot get through to you. They write [on blogs] two tanks had been blown up on Dzhioeva street!!! If you can - call me."
By then Diana, 67, and her sister Zaira, 64, had been killed. Mr Sipols said they had died in each other's arms - one trying to protect the other. "I was calling and calling and calling. But it was just ringing," he said. "I had a gut feeling she was dead. I just burst into tears. I shut myself in my office at home and cried. I didn't want my six-year-old daughter to see me."
Mr Sipols said he had tried to evacuate the pair to London, but Zaira had refused to leave her patients at the hospital where she worked as a doctor, and his mother had refused to leave her sister.
"I feel so guilty because I didn't get my mother and her sister out of there," said Mr Sipols. "I could and should have pulled them out."
The manager partner of Cube Capital, a firm with more than $1 billion of investments, had just recovered from an operation following a heart attack.
But he defied doctors' orders, and the pleas of his wife Olga, and flew to Moscow then to Ossetia to discover the truth about his mother's fate.
He said: "I told my wife I am going back; I need to know what is going on and what has happened to them. My wife said, 'You cannot go back. You have a weak heart, your daughter here, and you will be killed'. But I said, 'I am going. I don't care what you say'."
He discovered the bodies in a morgue in North Ossetia, across the border in Russia. "They were so badly damaged my relatives did not want me to see them. They were worried my heart would not cope," said Mr Sipols. He visited the family's two-storey home in Tskhinvali to survey damage caused by shelling, and said he found a 10ft wide crater in the garden and shrapnel that had penetrated the concrete walls.
After taking photographs of the damage and collecting shrapnel for tests, Mr Sipols believes he has the evidence to pinpoint where the fatal shell was fired from, who was in command and who gave the order to fire.
Details are with London law firm Gherson & Co, which is co-ordinating the legal action. It is not clear where a case would be brought, but it could be at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in Georgia, in Moscow or even at the High Court in London. South Ossetia, many of whose citizens have Russian passports, unilaterally declared independence from Georgia in 1991. Georgia insists its invasion was a justified attempt to gain back control of its own territory.
Russia says it sent in troops to protect its peacekeepers in the region as well as South Ossetian civilians.
Mr Sipols said: "People think this war was about Russia destroying Georgia but it's not. This is about the people of Ossetia. My mother didn't need to die. I just wish I had brought her to London. She would have been safe here. I will live with that guilt for ever."
Reader views (2)
Move to Russia matey.
- Frank, Home Counties, England., 09/10/2008 14:10
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There has been too much misinformation about Georgia's action in this war, so any sort of legal inquiry is very much warranted.
When the truth comes out it will be clear that what Georgia did against the civilians in South Ossetia is against international and humanitarian law, and that Russia was correct in recognizing South Ossetia as an independent entity that will no longer be forced to live under Georgia's rule.
- Carl Willis, Brighton, UK, 09/10/2008 13:45
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