Talk:Igor Girkin/Archive 1

Archive 1

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 22 July 2023

In the first paragraph for this chapter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Girkin#Dismissal_as_Donetsk_People's_Republic_minister

The name "Sergei Kavtaradze" should not be linked to any page. The page it is currently linked to is for a completely different person who died decades before these events: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Kavtaradze Smike05 (talk) 05:26, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

 Done, thank you. — kashmīrī ^TALK 06:53, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Arrest: source

Hi there,

the source listed for Girkin's arrest does not address the topic. TASS has made a press release about the arrest, though: https://tass.ru/proisshestviya/18331337

Since I lack extended-confirmed edit privileges, I'd like to ask someone to replace the source. Mirrortemplar (talk) 11:06, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

 Done by another editor. Sourcing seems good now. — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:07, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Category:War criminals

Category:War criminals was added by @Ymblanter on November 18, 2022, nine months ago.[1]

It was removed by @Kashmiri twice, recently,[2][3] with “not convicted of war crimes” and invoking BLP.

I would argue that it is a stable part of this article as well, and should be subject to WP:BRD, and there is no reason to tie it to the start of an edit war over Category:Mass murderers, so I am starting this separate discussion.  —Michael Z. 19:36, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME explicitly prohibits such a label since the subject has not been convicted of a war crime. This is unrelated to BRD and any considerations of stable version, etc. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:41, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I believe that the Dutch court did find that Girkin did not have combatant immunity, and therefore his mass murder conviction does not make him legally a war criminal.

But he did admit to committing war crimes in Chechnia, and is called a war criminal for it in sources. I suppose we’ll have to dig them up and see if they warrant the category.

I don’t know about his crimes in Bosnia or Crimea.  —Michael Z. 19:59, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I’m addition to what Mzajac says, the BLPCRIME guideline in this case applies to non public figures. Girkin is a public figure. Volunteer Marek 02:10, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

All Ukranian and pro-Ukranian sources are referring to him as war criminal and terrorist, but they are heavily biased. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 06:31, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

You can’t dismiss sources because you think they’re biased and the definition here is almost circular: what makes a source “pro-Ukrainian”? Why, obviously the fact that they call him a war criminal! Volunteer Marek 02:10, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

We can dissmiss them cause warring parties tend to lie on each other. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 06:02, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

No. We don't get to make that call and say which source is lying or not (you could use that excuse to remove almost anything!). We go by whether sources are reliable or not. Volunteer Marek 14:53, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Pretty much every leader whose country is engaged in an armed conflict has been called a war criminal by the other side. War crimes are, unfortunately, part of most armed conflicts and are always exploited by the propaganda of the warring parties. We're a global encyclopaedia, though, not an advocacy/propaganda platform, and so we need to weigh our language more carefully; particularly with regard to living persons. — kashmīrī ^TALK 11:57, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

We need to follow reliable sources is what we need to do. Volunteer Marek 02:11, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Disagree. We need to follow the policies. WP:INDISCRIMINATE is one of them. — kashmīrī ^TALK 12:32, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

VM: "We need to follow reliable sources". Kashmiri: "Disagree. We need to follow the policies". Following reliable sources IS the policy. I see no relevance of WP:INDISCRIMINATE here - this is NOT "indiscriminate collection of information". This is a key fact about this subject. Volunteer Marek 14:53, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Comment @Ymblanter It might be helpful to the discussion if you could state your original rationale for adding the category. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 08:18, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I am pretty sure I added it following the Dutch court decision, and at the time it seemed obvious to me (I must have seen a couple of English/ Dutch sources calling him a war criminal, but I have no records, and the sources might have been premature). I did not mean his activity in Chechnya or elsewhere. Ymblanter (talk) 11:54, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, however the Dutch did not charge the subject with war crimes at all. His charges were only common crimes based on the Dutch penal code (it was, roughly, murder/manslaughter and being accessory to it). — kashmīrī ^TALK 12:04, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

To be precise, he is convicted for co-perpetration of 298 counts of murder - not manslaugther/accessory - and co-perpetration of intentionally and unlawfully causing an aircraft to crash, see [4]] Difool (talk) 14:48, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Here[5] is an excellent explanation of the term "co-perpetration" and other modes of criminal perpetration under the Dutch law (scroll down to Modes of Participation). They have no good equivalent in Common Law, however they differ significantly from being the perpetrator which the English term murderer entails. — kashmīrī ^TALK 10:41, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

As your source says, in Dutch law co-perpetrators are considered as equally responsible for the crime as the perpetrators, and co-perpetrators face the same sentence as the perpetrators.

You could compare it to the September 11 hijackers, Ahmed al-Ghamdi is labeled as Category:Saudi Arabian mass murderers even though he didn't fly the plane. Same for Osama bin Laden (I assume the category is for the September 11 attacks). Difool (talk) 15:33, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Those comparisons are entirely inaccurate. Al-Ghamdi led the actual hijacking. Bin Laden conceived and planned the whole idea.

In contrast, nobody is claiming that Girkin personally premeditated the murder of 298 innocent civilians; the court strung together a long chain of tenuous steps to find him to have been a co-perpetrator of moord (I use the original term because the Anglo-American use of the term “murder” is defined in a specific way), invoking the doctrine of transferred intent (implicitly assuming that the act of shooting down a Ukrainian military cargo plane would have been ordinary murder and within Dutch jurisdiction). Specifically, Girkin was considered guilty because he was found to have been aware as a commander that the TELAR was being deployed into the separatist-controlled territory.

In my view, making Wikivoice statements on the basis of the Dutch verdict is seriously problematic, because, among other reasons to hold back, customary international law views the proceeding to be a nullity of nullities (as I outlined previously in other replies).

But even if one accepts the court ruling completely, it doesn’t matter because the act or omission he was found to have done is not, neither commonly nor in Anglophone legal systems, called mass murder.

Anyway, that should suffice to answer the “mass murderer” arguments.

But as for “war criminal”, there is no real basis and these sorts of additions always need to be considered very seriously before adding, especially in a BLP. “At the time it seemed obvious to me” is hardly a good enough reason if strong support can’t be found after the fact. For a legendary Wikipedian to make such a careless oversight would be the intended purpose of WP:TROUT if it had come up outside the context of a talk page discussion.

The bandying about of the term “convicted war criminal” by journalistic sources and at least one partisan think tank has no basis in facts. He was not tried for war crimes, probably since there was no known evidence of any conspiracy to intentionally shoot down a civilian airliner.

Adding a category is no different than making a characterization in the lead. It’s really that simple. Calling a living person a war criminal in the absence of any conviction for that is just an egregious violation of multiple WP policies.

Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 14:59, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Hats off for an excellent explanation, @RadioactiveBoulevardier. Regarding the potential war crime charge, one other consideration is that apparently such a charge can't be tried in absentia and so it was not even considered by the Dutch prosecutors. That said, should it be proven in a court that the shootdown was a blatant violation of the 4th Geneva Convention (which I strongly believe it was) and that Girkin had co-perpetrated it, I'd be more than happy to re-add the "war criminal" category myself. For now, feel free to remove it per this response. — kashmīrī ^TALK 15:24, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I was literally writing out a detailed revert summary in another tab when I got the notification for this mention :) RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 15:28, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Those comparisons are entirely inaccurate. Al-Ghamdi led the actual hijacking. Bin Laden conceived and planned the whole idea.

You and Kashmīrī argued that the Dutch conviction of Girkin of 298 counts of murder would not be defined as "murder", because he was not the perpetrator of the killing. I tried to use Al-Ghamdi and Bin Laden as examples of people categorized as mass murderer, but who were not the perpetrators of the killing.

You two argue that for "murder" - in the Category:Mass murderers description - a very strict definition needs to be used, but inconsistently that for "state" a very loose definition can be used.

My POV is:

• Girkin is convicted by a Dutch court of Girkin of 298 counts of murder. To not accept the conviction of the Dutch court, you have to provide a reliable source.
• Multiple sources call him 'convicted of mass murder': CNN, The Irish Times, BBC - BBC calls the act also a war crime, BTW.
• The "state" in the Category:Mass murderers description should be used to make distinction between people that have combatant immunity, war criminals, and those who have not, mass murderers. The Dutch court explicitly says that the DPR was not a State, and that Girkin can't invoke combatant immunity because he was not in service of the official armed forces of Russia.

With this we can categorize Girkin in the Category:Mass murderers. Difool (talk) 03:33, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

As always this comes down to sources. What are the sources that refer to him in such terms? Volunteer Marek 04:44, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, the only thing we can say per WP:BLP over there is that he was accused. He wasn't convicted yet. That's it. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 06:27, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Even if he wasn’t convicted, if sources call him a war criminal, so do we. Volunteer Marek 02:07, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Well I have to disagree cause WP:NEWS wouldn't be reliable for that statement, even though WP:RSCONTEXT would allow us. Stating that Ukranian-specific sources are always referring to him as such just to make this fact explicit would be fine. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 06:04, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

The page you link, WP:NEWS is a page which describes "Various sources of news about Wikipedia". I have no idea what the relevance of that is suppose to be. Perhaps you meant WP:NEWSORG? Volunteer Marek 14:44, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek Sorry, but Wikipedia is not a dumb collection of press quotes. This is an encyclopaedia, and its all articles are expected to have a (crowdsourced) editorial oversight. All editors are expected to abide by WP:BLPCRIME, for instance. The existence of a press article that goes against our policies is no justification for the editors to breach them. — kashmīrī ^TALK 11:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

That is incorrect. A "press article" cannot "go against our policies". Only editors or Wikipedia articles can "go against our policies". A press article is either a reliable source or it isn't and if it is then we can use it. WP:BLPCRIME applies to non-public persons which doesn't apply to Girkin. If reliable sources call him a war criminal so do we. If reliable sources call him a mass murderer so do we. The fact that he's actually been convicted of the latter is just icing on the cake. Volunteer Marek 14:42, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek Incorrect. BLPCRIME applies to all biographies of living people. For non-public figures, editors are urged not to include material even suggesting that the person has committed a crime.

A press article of course can be aligned with our policies (e.g., re. wording, sourcing, NPOV, etc.) or not aligned. If it's not aligned (takes fringe positions for instance), we should not blindly copy its wording without attribution. Yes, we as editors are required to evaluate sources prior to using them.

Even though, Category:Mass murderers is not to be used for those who carried out massacres in service of a state. As you can read in this very article, the shootdown was not a private killing by a Mr Girkin – it was a military order issued by a Defence Minister of a quasi-state acting in his official capacity. — kashmīrī ^TALK 15:09, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Incorrect. For individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures. Nobody’s suggesting using non reliable sources. What’s being suggested is using RELIABLE sources and following our WP:RS policy.

It would help the discussion if we could have a list of the sources that refer to him as war criminal or murderer. Volunteer Marek 15:40, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

The original idea of that line [6] was of course to put mass killers in either Category:Mass murderers or Category:War criminals. Difool (talk) 16:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

As an aside, while the Cat Mass Murderers apparently is not supposed to be used for state actors, one of its sub cats is [7] is basically almost ALL state actors. Sheesh. Typical. Volunteer Marek 15:47, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, they are mutually exclusive. The original cat creator perhaps thought of genocide as a subset of mass murder, but this is incorrect – (mass) murder is a common crime prosecuted under national laws, while genocide is usually prosecuted by international tribunals established on the basis of the UN Genocide Convention. — kashmīrī ^TALK 17:19, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Genocide usually includes mass murder, and is commonly considered to be targeted mass murder, although legally it is not defined that way. But on another level, of course, the very concept of geno-cide means murder of a nation which comprises a mass of people. The category hierarchy is not wrong.  —Michael Z. 20:33, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

genocide... is commonly considered to be targeted mass murder. You're making it up, sorry.

Genocide does often comprise mass killings, but legally it has nothing to do with the legal qualification of the crime of murder (which is defined and prosecuted under national legislation). — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:39, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

You know you don’t always have to be right, especially when it has little bearing on the topic at had. Killing innocent people is murder. Collins Cobuild defines genocide as murder.[8] Other dictionaries define it as intentional, deliberate, or systematic killing, which is murder.[9][10][11] Thesauruses give murder or mass murder as synonyms for genocide.[12]

If you want to be right, please show reliable sources saying genocide is not murder, or that it has ever been committed without murder.  —Michael Z. 19:17, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

For you to understand, you'd need to have a basic understanding of law, which you evidently don't have if you believe that killing innocent people is murder. Ever heard of traffic accidents? Why should the victim's innocence matter?

See, I could try to explain it to you, but I'm afraid it would be a complete waste of time. Let me only say that murder is a concept of criminal law. When the court is to decide whether a given act was a murder, it will look into the criminal code. The court may rule that the homicide did not constitute murder but, for instance, manslaughter or even it was an accidental death.

Genocide is only loosely related to killing. The modern definition of genocide encompasses not just physical elimination of a nation but also other methods that may lead to the extinction, like mass sterilisation or mass deportation of children. For a good overview in simple English, one that I hope you will comprehend, see here: [13].

Remember: genocides can be complex, and genocide ≠ mass killings.

When deciding whether a given act was genocide, the court (an international tribunal, usually) will not be interested in any country's criminal code or other national laws but will focus on the 1948 Genocide Convention. The tribunal will not rule about murder, manslaughter, accidental deaths, etc. It will instead focus on checking whether the act has fulfilled the Convention criteria. This is what the Convention is for.

Now, the article subject has not been charged with genocide. He has not been charged with war crimes (unfortunately!). He has only been charged with (and convicted of) violating Dutch national legislation.

I very much hope this clarifies the matter to you. — kashmīrī ^TALK 02:54, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose moving the article from Category:Russian mass murderers to Category:Russian violators of Dutch national legislation.  —Michael Z. 01:38, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, explaining legal nuances to you was a complete waste of time, just as expected. — kashmīrī ^TALK 11:14, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I support Girkin's inclusion in Category:Mass murderers mainly per @Difool argumentation and citation of sources. While @Kashmiri and @Alexander Davronov's arguments are interesting at times, they have not presented reliable sources to support their claims. Marcelus (talk) 06:10, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

• The subject has been convicted in the Netherlands for the murder of 298 people. That crime qualify as a mass murder and a war crime. If he is not a mass murderer and war criminal, then I do not know who is. And he is described as such in a number of sources. My very best wishes (talk)

Mass-murderer

This is a continuation of a discussion at #Category:Mass murderers, above. —Michael Z. 19:40, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

17, 2023, 20:46 - «Undid revision 1170844837 by Kashmiri talk) reverting to stable version until there is consensus to change»
17, 2023, 15:28 - «Undid revision 1170842087 by Mzajac talk) Read WP:BRD and WP:BLP»
17, 2023, 15:10 - «Undid revision 1170840684 by Kashmiri talk) discussion in progress: please show consensus instead of unilaterally changing»
17, 2023, 15:02 - «removed Category:Russian mass murderers using HotCat See Talk»

@Mzajac and Kashmiri: It's correct to call the subject a Mass-murderer. Cause at least not directly but he is responsible for massive deaths. Just like putin.

AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 13:23, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Being indirectly responsible for (i.e., contributing to) mass deaths is not the same as being a "mass murderer", sorry. Otherwise you'd need to use this term for pretty much every US or Russian president and many generals. — kashmīrī ^TALK 11:35, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

If anything, Girkin should have been charged with a war crime, as he was in the military chain of command at the time and his order was a war crime, pure and simple. However, such a charge would not stand in a Dutch court due to jurisdiction issues. Hence this very problematic charge of murder. — kashmīrī ^TALK 11:44, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate you pushing back on these claims - but do you think there's material in Igor Girkin#Chechen Wars to justify the claim for him being a mass murderer? --Svennik (talk) 14:36, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Our article suggests that it's uncertain that Girkin at all took part in Chechen wars – the entire "Chechen Wars" subsection is mostly speculation based on anonymous blogs and websites that no longer exist. It would be an extremely weak base for such a claim related to a living person. — kashmīrī ^TALK 14:56, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

So Kashmiri’s now arguing that Girkin cannot be categorized as a mass murderer because he should have been charged with war crimes, but he’s not a war criminal because he’s not charged with war crimes. Do I have this right?

Well, it’s an unfounded opinion. The subject was charged and convicted, declined the right to defend himself, and declined any right to appeal. He’s legally guilty of murder was of 298 people, which meets Wikipedia’s definition for Category:mass murderers, “defined as killing at least four people at the same time or over a relatively short period of time.”  —Michael Z. 19:52, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Category:Mass murderers

Category:Mass murderers “lists individuals who have committed mass murder, defined as killing at least four people at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. This category is not to be used for those who carried out massacres in service of a state.”

Girkin did not openly wear a Russian military uniform in 2014 or admit to being employed by any of the RF’s security services, and as far as I know, the Russian state has never admitted to his working for it while he shot down MH17. If he was working for the state, it was with officially like the status of an undercover agent.

I think he should probably be added to this category, unless and until Russian state responsibility is proven, in which case the article Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 should be added to Category:Massacres committed by Russia (also, both could conceivably be the case, if and when Russian soldiers are also found guilty of the crime).  —Michael Z. 21:45, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Come to think of it, the court mentioned Russian “overall control” of the DLNR, so I have also started a conversation at Talk:Malaysia Airlines Flight 17#Category:Massacres committed by Russia.  —Michael Z. 22:05, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

That would also mean similarly categorising people responsible for other similar accidents, e.g. William C. Rogers III authorising the shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655. — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:24, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Was he convicted of murder in a fair trial for it?  —Michael Z. 16:38, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

There are way too many legal questions surrounding that verdict, not least related to jurisdiction (neither the crime took place on the territory within Dutch jurisdiction nor was the Malaysian airplane subject to it) and whether an in-absentia trial for mass murder can at all be considered fair. Not even mentioning the finding that "[t]he accused did not “push the button” themselves but were responsible for bringing the anti-aircraft system to eastern Ukraine" (source in article) which in common law would only mean they were accessory in crime.

In my perception, all this is way too weak for Wikipedia to brand a living person a mass murderer. — kashmīrī ^TALK 14:59, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Not a single one of those things is a legal question. If they are being challenged in court, or in reliable sources, please show it.  —Michael Z. 15:07, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Kashmiri, I started this discussion November 21, 2022, and after no objection added the category December 11.[14] It remained stable for over seven months with no change or discussion, representing WP:CONSENSUS by WP:SILENCE.

You re-started the discussion, but then removed the category without consensus, over eight months after it was added on August 17, 2023,[15] I reverted.[16] You started edit warring by re-reverting while invoking BRD.[17] Not fair play. You know this page is subject to both WP:CT and WP:GS/RUSUKR.

Please revert back to the stable version and then either continue BRD by discussing, or start a WP:DR process.

You also cited BLP without stating how it applies. I’m aware of nothing in BLP that doesn’t allow us to use the mass murder categories for mass murderers (according to its inclusion criteria is at Category:Mass murderers), after they’ve been convicted by a fair court.  —Michael Z. 16:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I must have missed that you added the category despite objections. BLP doesn't allow us to call living people any way we want, and libellous terms must be reverted. No reliable source calls the subject a "mass murderer", and Wikipedia will also not in its own voice.

By the way, please note that the subject was convicted for playing a role in murder[18], however playing a role is not the same as being the murderer.

If you'd like to read a bit more about problems with the prosecution's case and the possible legal challenges (should the defendants be willing to raise them), please read this: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40802-021-00193-8 — kashmīrī ^TALK 17:46, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

He’s not a convicted role-player. Your own source says “Dutch judges convicted two Russian men and a Ukrainian man in absentia of murder for their role in the shooting down of Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 with the loss of 298 passengers and crew, and handed them life sentences.”

The respective category “lists individuals who have committed mass murder, defined as killing at least four people at the same time or over a relatively short period of time.”

Your other source on possible legal challenges was published August 19, 2021, while the trial was in progress. The conviction was handed down fifteen months later on November 17, 2022 and not challenged. This article says Girkin’s a convicted murderer with no reservations.  —Michael Z. 20:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

First, I humbly suggest you reread the guidelines relating to BLP and consensus as it will inform the discussion.

Second, the conviction is not necessarily enough to call a living person a mass murderer (especially given the connotations it has in colloquial discourse), because:

• Verdicts in absentia are generally not considered final even in those countries that allow it;
• More or less from beginning to end, there were a large number of serious procedural issues and uncertainties, which I won’t delve into for now out of brevity concerns;
• Most importantly, the acts that the court found that Girkin had committed would, in most other jurisdictions, in no way whatsoever be defined as murder (the most it would be in the US for instance would be accessory to manslaughter — and that’s assuming trial as a civilian).

There’s been a lot of scholarly discourse about the matter, but the article Kashmīrī linked is as good a place to start as any.

And in conclusion, I might as well reiterate that for our purposes, international law is a topic for one or more encyclopedia articles, which happens to sometimes bear on other topics. It is not the supreme arbiter of editing disputes.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 23:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

1. Are you saying the District Court of The Hague does not consider its murder verdict final? [Citation needed] Girkin did not choose to enjoy his right to appear before the court, nor to appeal the murder verdict.
2. Are you saying there are unresolved “issues and uncertainties” that affect the murder verdict? [Citation needed]
3. Irrelevant (if true [Citation needed]), because the District Court of The Hague had jurisdiction and found Girkin guilty.

Dutch law convicted him of mass murder. He’s unambiguously a convicted mass murderer. There is no debate about it in reliable sources. Your strong, unfounded opinions about it have no bearing.  —Michael Z. 03:51, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Mzajac: You are making things up. There is no concept of "mass murder" in Dutch criminal law as far as I gather, nor such a charge ever appeared on the chargesheet in this case[19]. The subject has been convicted on two charges and cleared of others – here is the original sentence: [20]. The original verdict was not final and the parties had a right to appeal, however they have not done it for reasons expressed by themselves.

For your kind information, G. W. Bush has been convicted of war crimes by a lawfully constituted court in a third country[21]. I wonder when you intend to add Category:War criminals to his article if you are such a believer in the universal applicability of local court rulings. — kashmīrī ^TALK 08:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

You’re pulling this discussion into a loop by misrepresenting what I wrote and what our criteria for this category are. I’m not going to bother repeating myself to contradict your faulty logic. If there’s a problem with the Bush article, I suggest you correct it or start a discussion there.  —Michael Z. 12:50, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I think all three of my points are valid, notwithstanding your apparent unwillingness to directly engage with the substance of mine and others’ arguments.

1) According to the sources cited in WP’s article, in absentia defendants are usually entitled to a retrial in person in addition to any later appeals. In addition, in many other countries (as well as all international war crimes tribunals) such trials are completely banned.

It’s also interesting that Girkin et al. have not had ICC or similar arrest warrants issued, perhaps since prosecutors felt there wasn’t a good enough case under international law.

2) I am saying that the case had so many problems on points of law and procedure that it’s difficult to state them all. The matter of jurisdiction itself, since you mentioned it, is dubious; in addressing it, the court makes several assumptions, some unstated, and at least one of which doesn’t accord with customary international law (cf. the various Yugoslavia proceedings).

The sum total of the problems is such that it’s difficult for a person steeped in US legal theory and standards of criminal procedure not to feel reflexive and visceral rejection.

3) The court found, essentially, that the intent was to shoot down the plane and thus the doctrine of transferred intent applies regardless of who the actual victims were. This is assumes that the act of shooting down a military cargo plane is definable and prosecutable as common murder (see above re:customary international law).

The court itself concluded that there were “procedural irregularities” which in their opinion did not prevent the case from continuing.

Anyway, if you want to continue, we can try one of the other processes. I’d rather wait until the RfC (below) on the quotation is done, if you don’t mind.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 01:55, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

It’s also interesting that Girkin et al. have not had ICC or similar arrest warrants issued, perhaps since prosecutors felt there wasn’t a good enough case under international law.

The Russian Federation vetoed the proposed creation of an MH17 Tribunal. The ICC doesn't do a trial in absentia, so taking that route for these people would mean no trial. Difool (talk) 06:15, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Since your steeped opinions aren’t even backed by any sources that say Girkin is not a convicted murderer, I won’t even bother pointing out the irrelevant premises and logical fallacies. Please relate your arguments to the guidelines and sources, and don’t clutter the page because WP:NOTCHAT.  —Michael Z. 16:23, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

@Mzajac Per WP:ONUS, it's up to you to prove that the subject has been termed "mass murderer" by multiple reliable sources. Otherwise, BLP advises to err on the side of caution. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:00, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

No. I’ve already referred to the criteria for inclusion at Category:Mass murderers, and your argument ignoring it is a straw man.  —Michael Z. 19:03, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Your latest revert seems to be based on an opposite argument. Now you’re arguing he’s “Not convicted of war crimes, either.”[22] I believe a number of sources refer to him as a war criminal.

You want to un-categorize him as mass murderer because although he was convicted of it sources supposedly don’t call him that. But you want to un-categorize as war criminal because although sources call him that he supposedly wasn’t convicted of them.

Let’s please find consensus before changing and not edit-war.  —Michael Z. 19:08, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

You need to read more closely: This category is not to be used for those who carried out massacres in service of a state.

The ECHR just established that DPR/LPR were under effective Russian jurisdiction at the time[23] while Girkin was in service of a state (both as an official of one of partially-recognised republics and as a combatant funded by the Russian Federation).

As I wrote again and again, you must establish consensus before adding a controversial template. It's you who have originally added it, and so you are strongly advised to follow WP:BRD. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:24, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for acknowledging the category’s inclusion criteria.

As we’ve noted below, the Dutch court determined it had jurisdiction to try Girkin (and therefore he could be convicted of murder but not of war crimes in eastern Ukraine) because he was not a lawful combatant, because he didn’t wear the uniform of any state.

As also noted previously, the mass murderers category stable and not controversial, for months until you made an edit and I reverted. BRD.

Now you’re repeating yourself under three different headings. Confusing things will not help get consensus for your change.  —Michael Z. 22:53, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Re. labelling the subject as a "war criminal", WP:BLPCRIME explicitly prohibits it as he has not been convicted of war crimes as far as I'm aware. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:28, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Okay.  —Michael Z. 22:54, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Kashmiri. If subject isn't a convicted a war criminal, it's outright lie to mention this. We can't allow media speculations into mainstream pedia. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 06:23, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

That’s a different topic (see below). He was convicted of murder for the deaths of 298 people, and he is to be categorized as a mass murderer.  —Michael Z. 06:46, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

This discussion is continued at #Mass-murderer, below. —Michael Z. 19:40, 19 August 2023 (UTC)