Police conducted a brutal search in the house of Cherkasenko, one of the leaders of DemAlliance

The search is conducted in the house of Maxim Cherkasenko, one of the leaders of the DemAlliance, his equipment and documents are being seized.

The search is carried out by the investigators of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police on the basis of the decision of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv.

As reported by activist Oleksiy Hrytsenko on his Facebook page, lawyers were not allowed to enter – they had to climb over the fence.

Deputies Sergii Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayyem and Svitlana Zalishchuk are present in this room. Leshchenko has conducted live broadcast from the premises, which also contained witnesses.

According to the broadcast, the search began around 7:30 am. Lawyers arrived at the scene at about 8:20 am.

Cherkasenko said that the apartment number is not specified in the warrant for the arrest, while the house has three apartments. “Investigators began to break into my parents’ apartment and it is stressful for them”, – he said.

According to Cherkasenko, the investigators gave him no opportunity to film at first. They immediately took his and wife’s phones and then laptops, ipads, all data storage devices.

He reported that law enforcers have copied all the inner-party documents and also read the internal correspondence of the DemAlliance members.

Although, the court ruling states that the investigators had to withdraw equipment on the case of interference in the work of online auction “Setam”, where the wife of Maxim Cherkasenko works.

Cherkasenko suggests that this case could be used as an excuse for a search.

People, who called themselves witnesses to search, said that they were invited to observe the procedural actions at Petrivka.

As reported by People’s Deputy Svitlana Zalishchuk, the searches were conducted not at the registration address of Cherkasenko’s wife, but at the Maxim’s place of residence. The lawyer was allowed to enter only when People’s Deputies arrived.

Also, according to her, there were other violations in investigative actions, namely: there was no specific list of what devices must be seized; a person whose surname is not in the ruling carried out the search; the judicial decision has not contained the reasoning part, on what grounds the search is carried out – is not clear.

Maxim believes that the real goal is not investigation about his wife, but the access to his digital media and communications of the DemAlliance members.