Decision of Prosecutor General Lutsenko phases down investigation into crimes against Maidan – lawyers

By disbanding the Special Investigations Department engaged in “the great case of Yanukovych”, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuri Lutsenko ruins the investigation center and allow former President Viktor Yanukovych and his entourage to escape criminal responsibility.

This is said in the statement of the NGO “Advocacy Advisory Panel” posted on Facebook.

The group of lawyers who, inter alia, defend the aggrieved parties in the cases of Maidan, declare that Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko by his order virtually destroyed the department as the center of investigation into crimes of the previous government and into crimes against Maidan activists.

“Horbatiuk [head of Special Investigations Department] will again have only 20 investigators. All the achievements of the aggrieved party are being destroyed,” the statement reads.

As noted, the established department of investigations into crimes committed by criminal organizations under the leadership of Stoliarchuk, Basov, and Zakharov should take all cases over criminal organization created by Yanukovych from Horbatiuk.

“It is likely that they will take away all the crimes committed by officials, and violent crimes in terms of the creation of criminal organization by Yanukovych and participation of other higher officials in it. According to the plan, presented by Yuri Lutsenko, all these cases will be combined with the cases of Klymenko, Kurchenko et al. investigated by the military prosecutor’s office and will submit the combined case of a total of 5,000 volumes to court by the end of the year to sentence the perpetrators in absentia,” the statement reads.

“Expiry of one-year period of the investigation: when combined, the terms of investigations will be counted based on the shorter one. That is, two to four months will be left. They will surely expire before submission to court...” the statement notes.

“Even purely arithmetically, now there is no time to familiarize with 5,000 volumes before the expiry of one-year period of the investigation and the period stipulated for proceedings in absentia,” the lawyers note.

This will make impossible for the court to allow consider indictment and deliver sentence in the case.

“Actually, Yuri Lutsenko allows Yanukovych and the entire group of officials, the cases against whom will be combined, to escape responsibility. The investigation will be announced completed. The Code of Criminal Procedure does not allow resuming the investigation or submitting the case to the court under general procedure (not in absentia),” the lawyers say.

On Monday, Prosecutor General Lutsenko announced that the case of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych and his entourage would be investigated by the newly created “Office for investigation into crimes committed by criminal organizations.”

In turn, Horbatiuk said that submission of “Yanukovych case” to the created department threatens bringing these cases to the end.

When asked about the reasons for such decision of the PGO leadership, he said that there were several reasons. One of them, as Horbatiuk said, is his disagreement with the existing procedure for proceedings in absentia, which, according to him, may allow representatives of the former government to avoid punishment.

“The current law on special proceedings is not consistent with the Constitution and the European conventions. It contains the legal issues that may lead to the destruction of proceedings and the avoidance of responsibility by persons who will be judged on the basis of this law,” the prosecutor said.