Polish prosecutors and police officers have documented traces of war crimes in Ukraine using a state-of-the-art 3D scanner. The material will be used to reconstruct events and provide evidence for the investigation against the Russian Federation.
The exact time and the specific locations the investigators visited for the inspection are known only to a select few, reports Rzeczpospolita. However, the newspaper revealed that Polish investigators visited central and south-eastern Ukraine, places where heavy fighting has taken place.
Two experienced prosecutors and police technicians participated in the expedition.
🔴 TYLKO U NAS. Polscy śledczy dokumentowali ślady zbrodni w #Ukraina przy użyciu skanera 3D https://t.co/3Nyn1X2BRA
— Rzeczpospolita (@rzeczpospolita) August 18, 2022
“Polish prosecutors and police officers performed procedural activities as part of the Ukrainian investigation,” Łukasz Łapczyński, spokesman of the national prosecutor’s fffice, told Rzeczpospolita.
“[The activities] consisted, among other things, of inspecting sites, including civilian buildings and civilian infrastructure sites destroyed as a result of shelling by the armed forces of the Russian Federation,” he added. “As part of the activities carried out, these sites and damage were recorded using 3D scanners.”
The inspection with a 3D scanner of specific areas of bombed towns and houses was requested by Ukraine, which does not have such equipment itself.
The technology allows inspectors to capture the site of the event up to the smallest detail, and its use by the police all over the world has been on the rise in recent years. Polish police have several such devices, including some of the latest generation.
“Everything is captured very accurately and ruthlessly, nothing escapes notice, and there is no room for human error. The 3D scanner ‘sees’ literally all around 360-degree radius. It allows all important aspects to be captured and documented,” said the unnamed industry source, quoted by Rzeczpospolita.
“Then, once the 3D image is available, analyses can be carried out,” the source added.
Polish prosecutors have been involved in the investigation of the war in Ukraine since its early days in March. Poland was also one of 41 countries that supported calls for the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes in Ukraine.
Main photo credit: manhhai / flickr.com (under CC BY 2.0)
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
