An investigator of the Azov-Black Sea inter-district border department of the prosecutor's office has rejected a petition lodged by the lawyer of fisherman Oleksandr Fedorovych on the return of his client to Ukraine.
“The investigator rejected the lawyer’s request, and the case was submitted for consideration by the prosecutor’s office,” a consul at Ukraine’s Consulate General in Rostov-on-Don, Vasyl Serdeha, told Interfax-Ukraine.
He said that the prosecutor’s office should decide within ten days whether the case should be transferred to court or for additional investigation by the investigator.
“Our position remains unchanged. We’re insisting on the innocence of our citizen and the need to bring him back home,” Serdeha said.
The consul said that Fedorovych feels well and that he does not lose hope that the question of his return to Ukraine will be resolved.
When asked whether Ukraine and Russia are jointly investigating the incident, as urged by Kyiv, the diplomat said: “There are all grounds for that, but we have no information about a joint investigation.”
As reported, Ukrainian Justice Minister Olena Lukash earlier denied allegations that a deadly collision between Russian coast guards and Ukrainian fishermen in the Sea of Azov last month took place in Russian waters, and claimed that because of that Russia has no right to prosecute the fisherman who survived the incident. She said in a letter to her Russian counterpart, Alexander Konovalov, that the Ukrainian boat was outside the two-mile sea zone that Russia claims to be its territorial waters when the vessel was spotted by the Russian coast guards.
The Ukrainian boat collided with the Russian coast guard boat off the coast of the village of Vorontsovka at approximately 18:00 on July 17. The fishing boat capsized and four Ukrainian citizens died in the shipwreck. One was rescued. The rescued Ukrainian fisherman, Fedorovych, had surgery on July 19.
Russia has also brought accusations against Fedorovych, the ICTV television channel said. The channel said he was charged with poaching marine resources under Part 3 of Article 256 of the Criminal Code of Russia and was facing up to two years in prison.
