News

Maidan affairs: former “Berkut” officer received 6 years in prison for torturing activists

Author:
Liza Brovko
Date:

The Kyiv Court of Appeals sentenced a former Berkut police officer for torturing protesters at the colonnade of the central entrance to the Dynamo Stadium named after V. Lobanovskyi in Kyiv.

This was reported by the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office.

This decision overturned the acquittal of the Dnipro District Court of Kyiv. The prosecutors proved the guilt of the former "Berkut" and at the same time an active policeman in torture (Part 2 of Article 127 of the Criminal Code). He was sentenced to six years in prison.

According to the prosecutors, the man deliberately tortured the participants of the Revolution of Dignity on January 20, 2014 at the intersection of Mykhailo Hrushevsky Street and Parkova Road. Two activists were thrown from the colonnade, and one of them, a minor, was undressed at a temperature of -12 °C and wounded in the thigh of the right leg with a knife. He was sprayed with pepper spray and forced to walk naked through a group of law enforcement officers while singing the national anthem of Ukraine. This, according to prosecutors, was a mockery of his ideological beliefs.

In 10 years, 82 criminal cases related to the events of the Revolution of Dignity were instituted in Ukraine. As of November 2023, 40 verdicts were handed down in Maidan cases, 49 people were convicted.