Law-enforcers will answer for the illegal actions against Volodymir Zakaliuzhny
The rights of the «Pora!» activist were defended by A. Yudkovska, an advocate of the Pecherskiy collegium of advocates of Kyiv.
We want to remind that Volodymir Zakaliuzhny was detained on 23 November in Kyiv in course of distribution of leaflets criticizing the activities of Viktor Yanukovich. He was transported to the Shevchenkivskiy district militia station of Kyiv, where he was accused of stealing of a cell phone.
The criminal case was instituted on the basis of the claim of citizen Nina Galena. She complained that, on 23 November about 7 p.m., during the concert in support of candidate to presidency V. Yanukovich on Evropeyska Square, she allegedly disclosed that a stranger openly stole her cell phone connected to the cell operator «Jeans». Besides, she accused Zakaliuzhny of stealing of her money, which were find later in a pocket of her trousers.
According to testimonies of deputies Pavlenko, Khmara and Orobets, who were present at the place of incident, at the very moment, when the women complained about the theft of her phone, it, for some reason, ringed in her pocket. Yet, the woman explained that she had one more phone (the stolen one), but she did not remember its number, since she used it as a pager.
The documents of the investigation department read that, during giving evidences, the woman was obviously nervous, which raised doubts in honesty of her words.
However, in spite of this, the militia officers transported V. Zakaliuzhny to the Shevchenkivskiy district militia station. He was accused of stealing of a cell phone, for which he could be condemned to two years of incarceration.
In the course of pre-investigation inquiry it was established that the claimant gave a false name, to say nothing about the contradictions in her complaint. The cell phone, which was the object for institution of the criminal case, was not found at all. During the inquiry Volodymir Zakaliuzhny categorically denied that he had committed this theft, and his words were confirmed by the witnesses. It is strange, but there were no witnesses at all, who pointed at Zakaliuzhny as at the person that had committed the considered crime.
Taking into account the fact that all possible investigation and operative-detective activities had been realized, the investigation came to the conclusion that the very fact of crime was absent, so the case had to be closed.
It is noteworthy that closure of a criminal case because of the absence of criminal event happens very rarely in practices of law-enforcing organs. By the data made public in «Visnyk Verkhovnogo Sudu Ukrainy» [«Herald of the Supreme Court of Ukraine»] (No. 8 (48)), in 2003 the number of cases closed by courts because of the absence of criminal event or corpus delicti was 138 (out of 28400), that is less than 0.5%.
It is known that closure of a criminal case because of the absence of criminal event frequently means that the actions of law-enforcers were illegal and violated the rights of the person, against which the criminal case was instituted.
This time the advocate of the Foundation for legal aid to the victims of violations of human rights of the Ukrainian Helsinki union of human rights will appeal against the actions of law-enforcers and demand the compensation of damage inflicted to Volodymir Zakaliuzhny. We hope that all persons guilty of the illegal detention of member of public organization «Pora!» V. Zakaliuzhny will be brought to responsibility, and that in future law-enforcers will avoid the regrettable mistakes, which can break somebody’s life.
Besides, taking into account groundlessness of the accusation against the activist of the public campaign, this case should be considered as one more example of persecution by law-enforcing organs for expression of political views.
Olena Goliuk, RUPOR