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Against Television Justice

01.02.2013    source: blogs.telekritika.ua
Three young men, two former sacristans of the Church and the elder brother of one of them have effectively become hostages of a promise made to the President to solve a crime within the week

The appeal below has been sent to participants in the EU-Ukraine summit, as well as the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, Amnesty International and many others.  We are asking for the Summit participants to raise the issue of three young men in detention since 2010. The case urgently requires attention because the men are widely assumed to be innocent but expected to get hefty prison sentences because of the President’s role in the case.  

The appeal below is posted in Ukrainian and English here http://blogs.telekritika.ua/?id=3202&  The signatures are given below only in the languages they were sent in - they include two former political prisoners, a number of defence lawyers, journalists, human rights activists, and others.  All are concerned about a likely miscarrage of justice and believe that three men’s lives must not be destroyed in this way. 

Appeal to the Participants in the EU-Ukraine Summit on 25 February in Brussels

We are writing with respect to the planned EU-Ukraine Summit on 25 February and repeated statements from high-ranking EU representatives that the Summit will be raising the issue of selective justice in Ukraine. 

This is indeed a serious problem at present and EU close attention and unwavering stand are vital. . 

We would therefore draw your attention to one case which, while not so obviously politically motivated, bears many of the same hallmarks as the prosecutions of Tymoshenko and Lutsenko. 

There are grounds for believing that the inalienable right of three young men to a fair trial is being violated as the result of the specific features of the case.  The day after a bomb exploded in the Svyato-Pokrovsk Church in Zaporizhya on 28 July 2010, President Yanukovych appeared on television ordering the heads of the law enforcement bodies to catch those responsible effectively within the week.  Less than a week later the Interior Minister announced just as publicly that the crime had been solved and the criminals remanded in custody.  Two and a half years later the three young men remain in detention, and though there is a widespread belief that they had no connection with the crime, virtually nobody expects an acquittal. The latter would mean that the police had unwarrantedly received awards for their record speed in cracking the crime and would in fact mean that this case which the President had taken under his personal control had not been solved.  The President would therefore be annoyed.

Three young men, two former sacristans of the Church and the elder brother of one of them have effectively become hostages of a promise made to the President.

The case has involved very serious irregularities, with one of the latest being the revision of the indictment to remove the part of the impugned crime for which all three defendants have an alibi. . 

Two expert assessments from authorized institutes effectively corroborated the allegations of all three defendants, finding that they had been placed under enormous psychological pressure.  The judge then ordered a third which obligingly found that there was no psychological pressure.  Translations of some of the transcripts from the interrogations can be found here.  We believe that these render the opposite view expressed by the last expert disturbingly untenable

Given the very serious concerns over this case, and the destructive effect on Ukrainian society of any trial whose outcome is widely seen as connected with factors unrelated to the guilt or innocence of the defendants, we would respectfully ask you to raise this issue at the coming summit. We would ask you to stress the need for a full investigation into all irregularities in the case and the allegations by all defendants that their confessions, now retracted, were given under both physical and psychological pressure.   It would be particularly helpful if you could stress that the three men’s guilt has in no way been established, and that there is no reason to believe that the public would be endangered by choosing a different restraint measure, not associated with detention 

Thank you for your attention.

Zynoviy Antonyuk, former political prisoner

Halyna Coynash

Oleh Levytsky, Defence Lawyer

Myroslav Marynovych, former political prisoner, Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University

Vladimir Stepanov

The full list:

 

Зиновій Антонюк, колишній політв’язень

Галина Койнаш

Олег Левицький, адвокат

Мирослав Маринович, колишній політв’язень,  проректор Українського католицького університету

Владимир Степанов

Олександра Матвійчук, Центр Громадянських Свобод.

Марія Алексеєнко

Ірма Крейн

Леонід Коздоба

Евген Захаров, Харківська правозахисна група

Людмила Клочко, Харківська правозахисна група

Андрій Диденко, Харківська правозахисна група

Олександр Букалов, «Донецький Мемориал»

Володимир Каплун, Харківська правозахисна група

Роман Миколайович Подолян,  приватний підприємець

Кшиштоф Следзиньский

Наталья Танатарова

Людмила Вольська

Олег Мартиненко

Алла Тютюнник, письменник, кінодраматург, журналіст

Андрій Книжний,  Клуб толерантності, Київ

Володимир Бацунов, , Харківська правозахисна група

Борис Захаров, директор КЦ "Indie"

Марина Захарова, музикант

Наталія Щербата

Олександр Шацький

Володимир Лесик,  Голова асоціації захисту прав громадян України

Professor Bill Bowring, Barrister & Director of the LLM/MA in Human Rights
School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London

Наталія Койнаш, психолог

Oliver Sheehan

Ольга Калашник, Центр «Ла Страда-Україна»

Маргарита Валерьевна Чухрий

Анастасія Ольховнікова 

Галина Місірук

Наталя Беліцер, Інститут демократії імені Пилипа Орлика

Олена Грушко

Наталя Камишникова, журналіст, Нововолинськ.  

Людмила Василевская

Юрій Луканов, журналіст

Ірина Кулик

Людмила Дмитренко

Олександра Марченко

Андрій Сенчук, режисер.

В’ячеслав Бур’ян.

Артем Поляк, програміст, Харків

Микола Кушнір, доцент фізичного факультету Чернівецького національного університету ім. Ю. Федьковича.

Богдан Василенко, газета "Суббота плюс", Запорожье

Михаил Багинский, журналист

Юрий Азаров, адвокат

Наталя Камишникова, журналіст, Нововолинськ.

Руслан Таратула, правник

Владислав Коротаев, адвокат

Олена Шклярук

Світлана Марченко

Владимир Грынык

Борис Потапенко, Ліґа Українців Канади

Томас Мілєновіч

Олексій Теплінський, провідний науковий співробітник,

Інститут математики НАН України

Андрій Кавчук, Юрист

Fabrice Esteve

Володимир Ханас, Адаптаційний чоловічий центр, Тернопіль

Валерій Савенко

Володимир Шевченко, м. Тернопіль

Лариса Вікторівна Пастухова 

Наталія Крісман, адвокат  м. Львів

Олена Бурлакова

Анатолій Бурлаков,   інженер-будівельник, Дніпропетровськ

Інна Улезко, вчитель, Дніпропетровськ

Андрей Петрович Тонне

Ярослав Балан

Сергей Белоусов

Роман Сербін

Ірина Красовська

Ewa Sowa, radca prawny

Larissa Fradkin, Sound Mathematics

Vsevolod Afanasyev, British Antarctic Survey

Мирослав Львович Горбачук, член-кореспондент НАН України,  доктор фізико-математичних наук

Валентина Іванівна Горбачук, доктор фізико-математичних наук

Bohdan Solowij, Adelaide, Australia

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