Most Ukrainians remember the Maidan once a year, on the anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity. Punishing those who gave and performed criminal orders requires public attention every day. Proceedings against some Berkut thugs who criminally abused Maidan protesters can be closed due to the statute of limitation. To avoid this, the Ukrainian public and the international community must pay attention to the Maidan cases.

InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community, will be publishing digests of materials prepared by the Advocacy Advisory Panel (a group of lawyers engaged in Maidan Cases) in English on its website. You will find below the highlights of Maidan court proceedings. Furthermore, the original article in Ukrainian provides numerous further examples of the procrastination of court proceedings by Berkut officers, policemen, and titushka thugs accused of savage beatings, torture, and murders of protesters, as well as by their defenders. There are indications of the forbearance of these tactics on the part of many judges. The conduct of judges is especially egregious in the cases of Maidan judges [Ed: Ukrainian judges who passed illegal decisions against the Maidan protesters] and related cases of public prosecutors and officers of the Ministry of Interior.

We also want to invite your attention to the arrest of Dzianis Ivashyn, a member of our volunteer community from Belarus and participant of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, by the Belarusian KGB. He conducted OSINT investigations of activities of the Ukrainian ex-Berkut servicemen in Belarusian OMON (riot police squad). He managed to publish three articles about this investigation before being arrested.

Results of the Last Month of the Year 2021

In December, there were 67 meaningful court sessions in 48 court proceedings (out of 120 scheduled sessions in 76 court proceedings). There was some progress in 38 court proceedings.

As usual, there were a number of delays. Some court sessions could not take place in December for usual reasons, such as the failure of the accused and their defenders to appear (e. g., due to “business trips”), because of illnesses and vacations of the judges, the involvement of judges into other processes, or notices from courts postponing the case review by almost half a year without indicating any reason for this.

Results of the Month is a monthly analytical digest. Here you can find detailed information about the process of court proceedings in #MaidanCases in December 2021. The factual and statistical information about the process of proceedings is grouped by episodes. Follow the links in the text to find detailed information about specific proceedings and court sessions.

 

In December, the Supreme Court made a decision on an important #MaidanCase by upholding the sentence of the runaway ex-President Viktor Yanukovych—13 years of imprisonment for the crime of high treason. This is the third and last instance that found Yanukovych guilty in spite of numerous attempts by the defense to disrupt proceedings and drag the case.

In December, the Sviatoshyn Court had a number of meaningful sessions in the case of #ShootingOnInstytutska. First, being petitioned by the defense, the court reviewed the video footage of the interview of Oleksandr Revazishvili, a so-called “rebuttal witness” or, according to the lawyer representing the victims, an actor; he promoted a fake version of the involvement of the “Georgian sharpshooters” and stated that these sharpshooters had been coordinated by Mamuka Mamulashvili. Later on, the court examined Mamuka Mamulashvili, who offered a very convincing rebuttal of the myth about the so-called Georgian sharpshooters and, as we hope, put the full stop to this fake story.

The examination of Maksym Andreyev, who described the circumstances of the fatal wound suffered by Ihor Pekhenko, was quite important as well.

In December, the court also examined civil claims. The stance of the Ministry of Interior as the defendant in the civil proceedings was quite interesting. The Ministry’s representative in the court stated that the Ministry of Interior could not be held liable for the actions of militia officers because the militia, which perpetrated crimes on the Maidan, does not exist anymore after the police reform. However, this representative failed to mention that one of the units of this purportedly “new” police is similar to the Berkut squad and gives shelter to many officers accused and suspected of being implicated in Maidan cases.

The long-lasting procedure in #PasichnykCase with regard to recognizing the son of the victimized protester as a successor to his civil case came to an end in December as well. Such recognition would enable Denys Pasichnyk and his representative to take part in the proceedings, but judge Omelian denied the recognition. Defenders in the case were coming up with various reasons for the postponement of the examination of the case in the court, and the court has sided with the defense at all times. As a result, the critically important 9 months were lost in this case, which is very close to the expiry of the period of limitation. This process is one of the most egregious examples of dilatory tactics and judicial leniency.

 

Withdrawal of the Driver’s License for a Trip to Mezhyhirya on December 29, 2013

#KytsiukCase—The Kyiv Court of Appeal was supposed to consider the notice of appeal by Roman Maselko, a representative of victims in the case, against the sentence for judge Viktor Kytsiuk. He issued decisions to withdraw the drivers’ licenses of Avtomaidan protesters for their trips to Mezhyhirya. The panel of judges was chaired by judge Mykola Khudyk, until quite recently a member of the High Council of Justice, who voted for appointing Kytsiuk a judge for life on December 3, 2020. At that time, Khudyk believed that Kytsiuk’s reputation had been impeccable and that he had been able to administer justice until retirement.

 

Judge Khudyk scheduled a meeting but then remembered his own involvement in considering Kytsiuk’s case in the High Council of Justice and recused himself.

For more detail, please see Roman Maselko’s post.

 

Find out How and Why Maidan Judges Are Reappointed to Their Offices in this video by Stas Kozliuk.

Later on, a new panel of judges was set up automatically. However, Roman Maselko, a representative of the victims, had to motion for disqualification of two judges from the panel, Andrii Dryha, and Viktor Gabriel. They kept in force decisions in Avtomaidan cases identical to those made by judge Viktor Kytsiuk. The motion was granted. Now, the court must run the automatic case allocation procedure again and appoint a new panel of judges.

 

#StepanovaShalapudaMoraCase On December 7, the Obolon Court, in the person of judge Serhii Rodionov, granted the motion for live video streaming submitted by Roman Maselko, who represents the victims in the case. On December 20, the court finished examining the accused Oksana Stepanova, Oleh Mora, and Nataliia Shalapuda.

In this case, the accused are Oksana Stepanova, chair of the Obukhiv Raion Court, Oleh Mora, judge of the same court, and Nataliia Shalapuda, deputy head of staff of the same court. Mora and Stepanova are accused of interfering with freedom of peaceful assembly by means of the administrative prosecution of Avtomaidan activists on the basis of the knowingly false documents (falsified evidence) and by withdrawing their driver’s licenses; Stepanova and Shalapuda are also accused of tampering with the automated case allocation system of the court.

Although Roman Maselko, a representative of the victims, requested the court to postpone the case review for a valid reason, judge Rodionov decided that the inability of the representative to be at the court session did not constitute a ground for the postponement, and the accused were examined without the participation of the victims and their lawyer.

You can find details of this court session HERE.

You can view the video stream of this session HERE.

 

Events in Hrushevskoho Street

Pasichnyk Case

#KlugeMatiushaCase Judge Inna Omelian denied recognition of Denys Pasichnyk, son of the deceased victim Mykola Pasichnyk, as his father’s successor in the case. It took the court nine months since March 2021 to arrive at this decision. Representatives of the accused have openly dragged the proceedings by requesting Denys to be personally present at the session, then the documents from his sister, and then the personal presence of his sister, purportedly to make sure that she did not wish to succeed in the case.

“Obviously, the decision has been made long ago, but it took the judge 9 months to rule. Nine long months… It was done to extend the proceedings as much as possible, rather than to defend anyone’s rights”, Maryna Lilichenko, a representative of the victims, stated after the court session.

For more detail, please refer to the article by Watchers.media.

Here, Ilona Kluge, former deputy prosecutor of Obolonskyi Raion of Kyiv City, and Vitalii Matiusha, investigator, are accused of the unlawful criminal prosecution of 72-years old Mykola Pasichnyk taken into custody on January 22, 2014, during the events in Hrushevskoho Street. The period of limitation for this crime expires on January 22, 2024, in 25 months.

 

February 18, 2014. Peaceful March

#SpasskikhCase On December 7, the prosecutor Ponomariov motioned to disqualify the panel of judges chaired by Maryna Yesaulenko in the case of Yurii Spasskikh. He supported the motion by the close relations between the panel members and the judges interviewed in the Maidan case.

You can see the prosecutor’s motion at this link.

The court granted the prosecutor’s motion for the disqualification of the panel of judges on the next day, December 8.

On December 23, the court of appeal reviewed the territorial jurisdiction over the case and sent it to the Solomyanka Court, where the case will be examined from the very beginning.

In another case, where Spasskikh is a suspect, Svitlana Volkova, judge of the Pechersk Court, changed the measure of restraint to 24/7 house arrest instead of keeping in custody. The prosecutor’s office made an attempt to appeal against this decision, but the court of appeal had not received all the case materials by December 22. Thus, Spasskikh was released from custody.

 

#LukashCase On December 8, the Darnytsia Court examined two victims in the case of Vladyslav Lukash, Berkut commander from Kharkiv. Oleh Krupa, a victim, told the court that he had been on Maidan from December 10 till February 18. He was severely injured during the peaceful march on February 18.

“There were clashes with Berkut. The officers started getting around us. The people there were squashed and started falling down. We approached the people to help them stand up, but the Berkut started pulling us away one by one, putting us on the ground and keeping us there. Other officers came there and started beating us. I was undressed to the T-shirt and skillfully beaten up on my kneecaps and hands. They broke my hands in two places; they broke my ribs and kicked 9 teeth out. It happened across from the National Bank building. When I came to, I saw a face of a militia officer, a first lieutenant, I believe. He asked me if I was alive. I told him I was. And he told me that if I wanted to stay alive, I had to crawl away because they were going to finish everyone up there”, the victim said.

After the beating, Oleh Krupa was transported to the Trade Unions Building. According to the witness, there were many injured people.

The other victim Mark Melnyk stated that he had seen the law enforcement officers shoot rifles and throw grenades on February 18.

“I was in the protesters’ line closest to the law enforcement officers, and I saw holes from bullets appearing on helmets of members of self-defense groups,” Mark Melnyk said.

He was wounded at the corner of Shovkovychna and Instytutska street near the building from which law enforcement officers fired at people. The victim tried to enter the building, but a grenade flew out from the window, fell under Mark Melnyk’s feet, and caused a lacerated wound on his thigh.

You can view the video stream of this session HERE.

The period of limitation in this case is approaching expiry.

The Darnytsia Court scheduled the case examination on September 29, 2016.

The period of limitation will expire on December 1, 2023.

23 months remain till expiry.

Forceful Crackdown on Maidan in the night of February 18 to 19, 2014

 

#ShcheholevCase In Oleksandr Shcheholev’s case, the Shevchenkivskyi Court has been examining witness Stepan Kubiv during two sessions. In the court, he dispelled the myths of the forced occupation of the Trade Unions Building by protesters, the storage of arms, and the existence of a secret laboratory as the rumors disseminated to discredit the peaceful protest.

For more detail, please refer to the article by Watchers.media.

In addition, Kubiv actually witnessed the fire and saw inflammable substances thrown into the Trade Unions Building.

More detail of Stepan Kubiv’s testimony on December 8 is available HERE, and that on December 23 is available HERE.

 

Thug Attack on Protesters and Murder of Vyacheslav Veremii on February 18, 2014

 

#BialaiCase On December 16, the Shevchenkivskyi Court continued reviewing evidence in the case of the thug Pavlo Bialai. For instance, participants listened to the sound record of the interview of the witness Babych by the investigative judge. He said that titushka thugs were in possession of firearms on February 18.

 

“There was Ivan Boiko (he is on the wanted list). He monitored and counted us; I saw him wielding a pump-action shotgun. Maksiura (probably, Stanislav Maksiura) held a Kalashnikov rifle. Potorocha (probably, Oleksandr Potorocha) also had a Kalashnikov. They were shooting toward Mykhailivska Square. I saw that Daghestani had a pistol. Also, I saw Serhii Kostenko wielding a pistol. There was another group of people. They had pistols and fired them toward Mykhailivska Square. After that, Yurii Krysin came. With him, there were 3 or 4 people. One of them was Oleksandr”, the witness said.

 

 

Massacre on Instytutska Street on February 20, 2014

 

#InstytutskaMassacre There were three interesting court sessions in the extremely important Maidan case of the massacre in Instytutska Street. On December 1, the Sviatoshyn Court announced civil claims by the victims against the accused and the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine. As expected, defenders of the accused voiced their objections. Anton Shchepanskyi, a representative of the Ministry of Interior, stated that the Ministry did not recognize the claims in full. According to him, the Ministry of Interior was reformed after the Maidan so that the Ministry cannot be held liable for the actions of militiamen, including Berkut officers, because there is no militia in existence, but there is the police.

“With its Resolution, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine decided to liquidate Directorates of the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine, including its Directorate in Kyiv City. The Ministry of Interior of Ukraine is not a legal successor to the agency to be liquidated and cannot be held liable for actions of the third parties, including officers of the Directorate of the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine in Kyiv City”, Anton Shchepanskyi stated.

You can view the video stream of this session HERE.

You can read a report by Stas Kozliuk about questions the representative of the Ministry of Interior asked from the representative of the victims HERE.

 

At its next session held on December 14, the court examined a witness Maksym Andreyev. Maksym is a young guy from Melitopol. He came to the Maidan a day before. He witnessed the fatal injury to Ihor Pekhenko and evacuated him to the Main Post Office. He was not familiar with Pekhenko and did not know whether he survived or not, in spite of a number of attempts. In several years, the witness recognized himself on a photo made during the evacuation of Pekhenko and published on Facebook.

Andreyev told that he witnessed that the people were wounded on Instytutska and that he saw law enforcement officers in the black uniform with yellow armbands and automatic rifles.

“People started going up the hill on Instytutska Street toward the timepiece. I also climbed it. I saw that a man was wounded in the buttock who rolled downhill. Then we climbed over a metal fence, and a man named Ihor, who was sitting to my left, told us not to worry and that everything was going to be fine. He held a wooden shield. After that, he told something incomprehensible and started leaning on me. I saw blood under his sweater”, Maksym Andreyev told.

According to him, the man was wounded to the chest. Maksym and Ihor were sitting next to one another on the corner of the October Palace (closer to the Maidan) near the stairs. We were hiding behind the shields. At this moment, the law enforcement officers in the black uniform with yellow armbands and AK rifles were near the columns of the October Palace.

Andreyev was examined as a witness on request of Yevheniia Zakrevska, a lawyer representing the victims.

 

At the same session, the court viewed the video footage of an interview of Oleksandr Revazishvili in Belarus with the lawyer Oleksandr Horoshynskyi. Berkut’s defenders have been promoting the fake narrative of so-called “Georgian sharpshooters” who fired at people on February 20. Revazishvili claimed to have been one of these sharpshooters. The victims consider him to be a fake witness. The public prosecution office provided evidence that Revazishvili had not been to Ukraine at the time of the Maidan events and, for instance, on February 20.

You can view the video stream of this interview HERE.

 

On December 22, the myth of the “Georgian sharpshooters” was fully debunked in the court. The court examined Mamuka Mamulashvili as a witness. Revazishvili claimed that Mamuka Mamulashvili had organized the arrival of Revazishvili and other Georgian sharpshooters in Ukraine. Several films used by Berkut’s defenders to justify the need for the examination of the “Georgian sharpshooters” in the court claimed that Mamuka had played this role during the events.

Mamuka Mamulashvili denied both being acquainted with the so-called Georgian sharpshooters and his stay in Ukraine during the events on the Maidan. He was quite ironic about Revazishvili as a “witness” and other actors in the film:

“The people in the film are actors who have not been cast properly. Firstly, they don’t look like the military. Secondly, they speak Georgian with such a thick accent that one can hear at once that they lived in Russia for a long time”, the witness stated.

Mamuka Mamulashvili told that he had not been to Ukraine during the Maidan. He only came to Ukraine in late April 2014 to train the Ukrainian soldiers taking part in defending Ukraine’s territory against Russian aggression. Before that, Mamuka Mamulashvili visited Ukraine once in June 2013, representing the Georgian Mixed Martial Arts Federation at the European Championship. This statement is evidenced by his passport and Facebook posts demonstrated in the court.

Mamuka Mamulashvili referred to the film about the “sharpshooters” as a total fake. And he demonstrated this convincingly in court. He pointed toward numerous mistakes made by the film’s authors, starting with the unprofessional casting of actors who played the role of “sharpshooters…”

“There are several fat guys claiming to be my sharpshooters. This is quite funny. I can show you the real sharpshooters from the Georgian legion. These guys can walk up to 60 km in a day”.

…and finishing with the ID cards demonstrated by the so-called “sharpshooters” to the cameraman. These are not only fake documents with grammar mistakes but also they have been issued by an entity that does not exist in Georgia.

“There are several grammar mistakes. The ID cards in this booklet format have not been in use in Georgia since 2004. We are using plastic ID cards”, the witness stated.

Mamulashvili’s testimony puts the final nail in the coffin of the legend about the Georgian sharpshooters. At the end of the examination, the Berkut’s defenders started doubting the fact that their “witness” Revazishvili had been referring to the right Mamuka, insinuating that there might have been another Mamuka Mamulashvili who had done all those things described by Revazishvili to the Belarusian public prosecution office. However, there is an image of Mamuka Mamulashvili in the fake movie, with which the defense claimed it was necessary to examine the “Georgian sharpshooters.” It was the image of the man who was actually examined in the court. The court made sure that this was the right person by reviewing the screenshots from the movie.

You can view the video stream of this session HERE.

Please also see Stas Kozliuk’s blog entry and a video of Channel 5.

Article on Babel.ua website.

 

#KosenkoCase The session of the Podil Court examining the case of Volodymyr Kosenko, an officer of the Omega special squad, stated that the victims had been notified about the session. About 100 victims submitted requests that the case be examined without their presence. The presiding judge Oleksandr Kitov granted the public prosecutor’s motion to stream the court session. However, the preparatory session was adjourned because, in the opinion of the court, it could not be held without the civil defendants who had not been notified about the session by the court yet one more time.

 

Volodymyr Kosenko is known to be accused of the intentional homicide of protesters in Instytutska Street on February 20, 2014, and other crimes with grave consequences.

 

February 20, 2014. Issue of Firearms to Titushka Thugs from the Warehouse of the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine

#IssueOfFirearmsToThugs  In this case, the defenders keep resorting to procedural diversions. All four attorneys representing Rostyslav Zavorotnyi failed to appear at the court on December 14. They referred to the bail hearing of one of their clients scheduled in the High Anti-Corruption Court and claimed that “it was a mere coincidence” that all the three Zavorotnyi’s lawyers were defending the same suspect. One more attorney claimed sickness but failed to provide any documentary evidence.

 

Oleksii Donskyi, the public prosecutor, asked the court to refer the matter to the disciplinary commission for the attorneys to be disciplined. Judge Pavlo Slobodianiuk granted the public prosecutor’s motion in part.

 

Oleksii Donskyi also requested that sessions in this case be scheduled daily because the defense kept disrupting the hearing. Attorneys representing the other accused claimed that it would interfere with the right to their clients to the defense. As expected, the judge declined the prosecutor’s motion.

 

According to the investigation data, ex-officers of the militia Roman Kaletnyi, Mykhailo Dikhtiar, and Vitalii Stepanchuk handed over more than 600 automatic rifles with more than 160,000 rounds to Rostyslav Zavorotnyi to be issued to titushka thugs.

This is Stas Kozliuk’s video that shows militia officers issuing firearms to the thugs.

 

In the meantime, the period of limitation in this case is close to expiry.

The case has been in the courts since 2016 and, for instance, in the Shevchenkivskyi Court since 2018.

The period of limitation will expire on February 20, 2024.

Twenty-five months remain till expiry.

 

Yanukovych Cases

High Treason

 

#YanukovychHighTreason In December, the long trial of Yanukovych sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment for the high treason came to an end. The Supreme Court declined cassation complaints submitted by Yanukovych’s defense. This is the third and last instance in Ukraine that found Yanukovych guilty.

 

His defenders tried to disrupt the examination of their own cassation complaints. They failed to appear before the court, requested to find the reason for their failure to appear to be valid, and organize a meeting for them with Yanukovych in Russia. In the meantime, Yanukovych fired his defenders and requested the court for extra time for finding an attorney.

 

However, a panel of judges chaired by Andrii Chystyk rejected motions submitted by Yanukovych and his defenders and announced its decision to uphold the sentence by the Obolon Court and the ruling of the Kyiv Court of Appeal.

For more information about the decision of the Supreme Court, see the link.

You can view the video stream of this session HERE.

Also see:

November Trial Results | October Trial Results | September Trial Results

 

Advocacy Advisory Panel in social media:

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Translated by Oleksandr Ivanov, edited by Artem Velichko. Distribution and reprint with reference to InformNapalm is welcome! (Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0)

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