You're reading: Lutsenko’s defense team appeals against ex-minister’s second sentence

The defense team of former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko on Wednesday, Aug. 29, filed an appeal against the verdict of Pechersky District Court of Kyiv in the criminal case on negligence while ordering surveillance over Valentyn Davydenko, a driver of the Ukrainian Security Council's ex-deputy head Volodymyr Satsiuk.

“Our appeal against this latest court sentence for Yury Lutsenko
comprises 52 pages of printed text. Why so much? We prove wrong each
sentence whereby the judge accuses Yury Lutsenko of a crime, and we cite
legal provisions and specific evidence in the criminal case that was
investigated during the trial. In other words, we have proved wrong in
our appeal practically all that the judge has written down in accusing
my client,” the Web site of the People’s Self-Defense party quoted
Lutsenko’s defense attorney Oleksiy Bahanets as saying.

Bahanets said that they had little hope that the Court of Appeal could overturn the verdict.

“The only hope left is the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.

In turn, the defense counsels, Ihor Fomin and Lutsenko’s wife Iryna, will lodge their appeals on Thursday, August 30.

As reported, Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court sentenced Yuriy Lutsenko
to two years in prison after convicting him of negligence during the
search for Valentyn Davydenko, a driver of the Ukrainian Security
Council’s ex-deputy head Volodymyr Satsiuk.

Lutsenko was arrested on December 26, 2010. He has been held at Kyiv’s pre-trial detention center since then.