At the closing press conference of the EU-Russia summit in Rome yesterday Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, admittedly acting as “Putin's defence lawyer”, tried to justify President Putin’s genocidal policy in Chechnya by accusing the European media of "telling tales" about the situation in Chechnya and supporting Putin’s genocidal policy in Chechnya.

Mr. Berlusconi’s statement is a shocking attempt to deceive the world about the situation in Chechnya and about President Putin’s genocidal policy. It deserves a strong and immediate condemnation from all democratic governments of the world. President Putin’s Russia has subjected the entire Chechen nation to systematic, collective and deliberate war crimes and crimes against humanity, brutally murdered a quarter of the Chechen population, turned hundreds of thousands Chechens into homeless and right-less refugees, and ruined the country.

Mr. Berlusconi’s statement is an insult to the memory of hundreds of thousands innocent Chechen women, children and men, who have been tortured, raped and murdered by President Putin genocidal troops and his KGB-style secret services. It is an insult to every Chechen who has lost his relatives and friends in Putin’s Nazi style concentration camps. It is an insult to every human being that values human rights and democracy. It is a blow to the credibility of the Italian presidency in the European Union and it is a setback to the European Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The Chechen Foreign Ministry therefore unequivocally rejects Mr. Berlusconi’s statement and condemns any attempt to cover up President Putin’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Chechnya, from whomever it comes. If Mr. Berlusconi, who has a vast experience with legal systems, wants to be Putin’s defence lawyer, we only hope that he will have his chance, when those who are guilty of genocidal crimes in Chechnya face an international or a Chechen tribunal.

It is extremely disappointing that Mr. Berlusconi fails to recognize that Putin’s government, as US Senator John McCain has recently observed, is “a continuation of 400 years of autocratic state control, and repression”. We are glad that EU leaders have expressed disappointment over Berlusconi’s remarks. We hope that member states of the EU will also distance from these unjustifiable misrepresentation of the situation in Chechnya deliberately aimed to cover up atrocious crimes of the current Russian regime.

Despite of the lack of courage and determination of the international community, we remain fully confident that perpetrators of the genocidal crimes in Chechnya and their accomplices will be brought to justice. The Chechen nation, together with the international community or alone, will defeat Russia’s colonial rule and bring justice to its innocent victims.

Press Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria