Even judges obstruct investigating Maidan cases – Prosecutor General’s Office

The investigators, who deal with the crimes committed during the Euromaidan protests, constantly face various obstacles on part of the current law enforcers, former officers of the Berkut riot police, their representatives, and even judges.

Chief of the Special Investigations Unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine Serhiy Horbatiuk posted this on Facebook.

“The concealed obstacles such as delays in consideration of motions on investigative actions and unjustified dismissals sometimes escalate to countering the investigation. In particular, the accounts of former officials are unblocked, the suspects for especially grave crimes are illegally released from custody,” he said.

The special investigations unit chief argues that the police officers try to avoid exposure by opposing the investigation.

“In particular, they fabling about the alleged psychological pressure on them by investigators and these far-fetched grounds are used to challenge the investigators. Then, the judges uphold these challenges,” Serhiy Horbatiuk explained.

As an example, he cites the hearing in the Kyiv Pechersk District Court on October 13. Then, the judge granted the motion of the witnesses (former Berkut riot police officers) to challenge the investigator in the case over illegal persecution of the Maidan activists.

“The challenge of the investigator was reasoned as follows: ‘to eliminate a possibility of arising assumptions of the participants in criminal proceedings about the investigator’s interest in the results of the pre-trial investigation,” Serhiy Horbatiuk said.

However, the legislator did not provide such reason for challenge of an investigator (Article 77 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine). Neither the witnesses nor their representative failed to provide any objective evidence to challenge the investigator in compliance with the law.

The head of the Office says that, despite the justified objections of the prosecutor, the challenge was considered and upheld in the absence of the investigator, thus violating the Article 81 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine.

“As a result, significant obstacles in the investigation of the high-profile criminal proceedings were put. Currently, the issue of entering the data on this fact in the unified register of pre-trial investigations is being examined,” Serhiy Horbatiuk said.

As reported, the lawyers of the Heavenly Hundred called on the authorities to punish those responsible for sabotage and incompetence in investigating of the crimes committed during Euromaidan.