On November 15, the Kyiv court acquitted the defendants in the case of illegal detention and detention of the then 72-year-old Mykola Pasichnyk. The victim passed away in 2020 without waiting for the court verdict.
This was reported by the press service of the Dnipro District Court of Kyiv.
The extras in the case were the former deputy prosecutor of the Obolonsky District of Kyiv Ilona Kluge and a former police investigator Vitaliy Matyusha. The third defendant former prosecutor Andriy Saichuk died in 2019, writes the Watchers media project.
According to the publication, Pasichnyk was beaten by “Berkut” security forces who were dispersing protesters on Hrushevskoho Street on January 22, 2014. The man suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. Despite this, he was detained and sent to the pre-trial detention center. According to the prosecutorʼs office, the law enforcement officers falsified the report, indicating that they allegedly found seven "Molotov cocktails" on the activist.
Saichuk signed a notice of suspicion to Pasichnyk of organizing mass riots. Investigator Matyusha signed the arrest protocol, and prosecutor Kluge signed a petition in which she insisted on taking the man into custody for two months. After some time, the preventive measure was changed to 24-hour house arrest.
Prosecutors demanded 7 years in prison for Kluge and Matyusha. In the end, the court acquitted them on all charges and rehabilitated the deceased prosecutor Saichuk. The prosecutorʼs office can appeal the verdict in the Court of Appeal.
Revolution of Dignity
On November 21, 2013, Euromaidan began in Kyiv. The reason was that Viktor Yanukovych stopped preparations for signing the Association Agreement of Ukraine with the EU. Protests turned into anti-government protests and gained a larger scale after the police dispersed the students on November 30. In February 2014, the shooting of demonstrators led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych regime.
The events were called the Revolution of Dignity, and the dead were called the Heavenly Hundred. According to the prosecutorʼs office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 107 people died during the revolution. Another 2.5 thousand were injured. Some cases of the Maidan are still ongoing.
- In August 2024, the commanders of Lviv, Kharkiv and Sevastopol “Berkut” were informed of new suspicions for the dispersal of protesters on the night of February 19, 2014 in Kyiv.
- In the summer of the same year, the State Bureau of Investigation identified law enforcement officers who started shooting at activists on February 20, 2014.
- Earlier it became known that the prosecutors of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine will file an appeal against the decision of the Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kyiv to close the criminal case against the security forces. They were accused of crimes against Euromaidan protesters on November 30 and December 1, 2013.
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