You're reading: Lutsenko asks court to change punishment for other Yushchenko’s poisoners

Former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko has asked Kyiv Court of Appeal to change the verdict of the Pechersky District Court on the episode concerning the case on the poisoning of Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko (2005-2010), at least with regard to the defendants in this case - former police officers Volodymyr Tarasenko and Oleh Pavlenov. 

“I’m not talking about myself… I, as ex-minister, am interested in the social aspect of this case,” Lutsenko said at a court hearing on Tuesday.

While addressing the judges, he drew attention to the fact that police officers who are dealing with investigative measures would be afraid of doing that.

“Remove this black mark from them,” Lutsenko said.

He said he was indignant that the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office, demanding that police officers deal with operational and search cases, then “imprisons us.”

“There are three of you, you are judges. Change at least a few sentences. Change the punishment for them [Pavlenov and Tarasenko]… You will take a decision not about Lutsenko, but about the presence or absence of a legal system … Dear judges, be a little patriotic about Ukraine,” he said.

“The important thing for them is that a striped [prison] uniform suits Lutsenko well,” the ex-minister added, ironically.