Journalist Volodymyr Lutyev fully acquitted

The Mykolaiv Regional Court of Appeal has acquitted on all counts the charges brought against the Chief Editor of the “Yevpatoriya Week”, Volodymyr Lutyev.

Mr Lutyev was accused of attempted murder of a deputy Mykola Kotlyarevsky. He was first arrested at the beginning of November 2002, however following considerable protest he was released on a signed undertaking not to abscond in December 2003.  Then suddenly, in June 2005, the Sevastopol Court ruled to remand him in custody where he was held until July 2006 when he was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment.

The case, which many believed to be  linked with the journalist’s exposure of abuses in the law enforcement agencies, aroused considerable public attention. The Human Rights Ombudsperson was involved from the outset and presented Lutyev’s case in the Supreme Court which in 2007 revoked the sentence and sent the case for review to the Mykolaiv Regional Court of Appeal which on 17 September totally cleared the journalist’s name.

From information provided by the Ombudsperson’s Press Service