​​Maidan case: a former law enforcement officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He took out the Berkutians and destroyed their weapons

The court sentenced the former law enforcement officer, who in February 2014 took the fighters of the "black company" of the "Berkut" special unit from Kyiv and destroyed their service weapons, to 10 years of imprisonment.

This was reported in the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office (PGO).

Also, the accused was deprived of the special rank of lieutenant colonel of the militia and banned from holding any positions in law enforcement agencies for three years. In addition, the court satisfied the lawsuit of the State Department of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Kyiv for compensation of material damage for more than 677 thousand UAH.

The ex-law enforcement officer was found guilty of organizing the removal of the Berkutians involved in the mass murders of Euromaidan activists on February 20, 2014 on Instytutska Street in Kyiv, as well as destroying and hiding their service firearms.

On the evening of February 23, 2014, he organized the transportation of the "black company" from the place of deployment of "Berkut" in Kyiv to the production premises of one of the project institutes, where they were allocated a separate hiding place.

In the morning of the next day, the employees of the "black company" of "Berkut" in groups of two or three people left Kyiv in the direction of Mykolaiv by taxi, and some of them later ended up outside Ukraine. The convicted ex-law enforcement officer supervised and financed this process.

He also destroyed the instruments of crime — service firearms, namely: 24 AKMS assault rifles, one Dragunov sniper rifle, three "Fort-500" rifles and one "Fort-12" rifle, which the Berkut fighters used against the activists.

He cut each weapon into three or four parts with a "bulgarian" and removed the markings — the serial numbers of the assault rifles and the sniper rifle. Then he took the destroyed weapons to the area of Zhukiv Island in Kyiv — he drowned a part in a tributary of the Dnipro River, the Vita River, and buried the other part on the banks of the Vita River.

• The "Berkut" special unit was liquidated by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov after the events on the Maidan in the winter of 2014. "Berkutians" are considered to be involved in the murders of peaceful protesters, the disappearance of people and torture.