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Rickert told the DOJ also had a video of Lang beating and drowning a woman that Fischer injected with adrenaline to keep her from losing consciousness. According to Rickert, another alien fighter filmed it on video. Fischer’s whereabouts are unknown and he could not be reached for comment.
Pirtle told investigators that, according to DOJ documents, Rickert filmed some of the interrogations and uploaded videos to his Google account, including one in which a man was arrested, thrown into a shower, and beaten with a sock filled with rocks. According to Pirtle, the man is believed to have fought with Russian-backed forces. Pirtle told investigators he saw Lang punch and push him, demanding the password to his Facebook account because Lang thought he was holding information on pro-Russian fighters.
Pirtle’s family members said they returned to the U.S. in the spring of 2016 because they were fed up with poor living conditions in eastern Ukraine and worried about “people doing bad things.” That person, family members said, was Lang. Pirtle, according to family members, emailed her explaining that “things were going downhill and she didn’t want to be involved.”
Morhun, Lang’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to this or specific allegations, saying “in order to deny or confirm any accusations, they must be brought,” and since the DOJ has not provided him or Lang with evidence, “we are talking about assumptions, and there is no point to comment.
The DOJ appears to have obtained and viewed the video and others, writing in the appeal that investigators obtained a warrant authorizing them to search Google accounts and emails that appeared to belong to Rickert.
“In the first video, LANG’s voice is heard demanding that the person provide the password from the social network account,” the DOJ wrote. “After the guy refused to give me the LANG password, someone said, ‘You have to beat him.’ LANG hit the man several times with his knees in the stomach and head, then threw him to the floor, and he was in pain.
The second video, according to the DOJ, “shows a Ukrainian repeatedly beating a man with a hard sock in a cell. After beating, the same person as RICKERT enters the bathroom and asks for the man’s password. After that, you can see how RICKERT punch someone in the back of the head.
Rickert and Pirtle’s account to the DOJ, and the agency’s description of the video, are consistent with what BuzzFeed News was told by an American fighter in Ukraine who knew members of Task Force Pluto and described him as a “charm for death and torture.” It also aligns with images from a video viewed by this reporter that shows what appears to be Lang standing over a seated person and tied up in a small room. The scene is also similar to that described by a Vice News reporter who interviewed Lang, Rickert, and Pirtle at the Novohrodivka base in 2016. In the story mentioned, a person was detained by Right Sector fighters, held in a “standing room only shower. stall” with a lamp on for a week, and beaten with a sock “filled with sharpened stones.”
Google account data, the DOJ wrote, also found numerous images of Rickert, Lang, Pirtle, and others handling weapons and explosives in eastern Ukraine, including in “trenches dug for combat.”
The DOJ documents do not describe any incidents in which Kennedy, Kleman, Boyenger, and Plaster actively participated in the abuse of civilians. Plaster, who now runs an NGO in Kyiv that helps Ukrainian veterans, said he “keeps a distance from anyone with a radical ideology” and provides “medical aid and training” to the country’s soldiers while on the front lines. Boyenger said, “I always act with honor and loyalty, as a taxpayer, I expect the government to investigate all allegations of wrongdoing and I look forward to seeing the results of the investigation as much as anyone.”
The DOJ document also said that US authorities believe that Lang and Kennedy, after spending time back in the US, “returned to Ukraine with the intention of planning and participating in armed attacks against Ukraine. [parliament]”in 2017.
The DOJ said in the document that US authorities in Kyiv received a report around March 14, 2017, that Lang was detained upon arrival at a Ukrainian airport because authorities “found items similar to a rifle with a silencer and a box of ammunition” on him.
Kennedy told BuzzFeed News that he never planned the attack on the Ukrainian parliament building, calling the allegations “nonsense.” He showed BuzzFeed News his passport, which showed he was not in Ukraine when the DOJ claimed he was there. But Kennedy said Lang had told him about being detained at a Ukrainian airport and found to have gun parts in his luggage. Lang did not respond to questions about the incident.
“I believe the FBI is unfairly demonizing and trying to prosecute us for no real reason other than our involvement in Ukraine,” Kennedy told BuzzFeed News.
Kennedy – who also served for a time as a soldier in the Ukrainian armed forces – said Lang convinced people to join the Right Sector in April 2016, and he remained only for a couple of months. “When I was gone nothing happened,” Kennedy said of the alleged war crimes. “We took no prisoners while I was there.”
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