Court declares Lutsenko a “free man”
The Podilsky District Court in Kyiv has suspended the criminal investigation by the Prosecutor General against the leader of the civic movement “Narodna samooborona” [“People’s Self-Defence”] in order to ascertain the legitimacy of the grounds for launching such an investigation..
Yury Lutsenko’s lawyer Yury Martyenko informed journalists of this today, 21 March. He explained that a suit had been lodged with the Podilsky District Court yesterday against the resolution of the Prosecutor General to launch a criminal investigation against Lutsenko. The court has therefore begun proceedings into this claim and has suspended the investigation.
Yury Lutsenko himself stated after his questioning at the Central Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General’s office “Any investigation on trumped up and politically motivated charges against me have been suspended and I am now a free man”.
The Prosecutor General launched a criminal investigation against Yury Lutsenko on 2 March under two articles of the Criminal Code, these being Article 364 § 3 (abuse of power) and 263 § 1 (unlawful use of weapons and ammunition”).
As already reported, on Tuesday morning investigators from the Prosecutor General’s office carried out a search of Yury Lutsenko’s flat. The Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko asserted that the search was linked with an investigation into Yury Lutsenko’s alleged abuse of his official position. Lutsenko was also summoned for questioning both yesterday 20 March, and today.
PL Yesterday it was also demanded that Yury Lutsenko sign an undertaking not to leave the area. This would have seriously hampered his activities at present in travelling around the country speaking at rallies. There are conflicting reports, but Yury Lutsenko himself said that he had refused to sign such an undertaking.
As reported yesterday, the grounds for the search were and remain unclear. No Israeli passport (!) was found, nor of course any idea as to how this could warrant a seven-hour search. Nor, in fact, was anything “incriminating” found.