You're reading: Yanukovych denies Chornovol’s accusations

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's press service called accusations that he ordered Tetyana Chornovol’s beating groundless and renewed the call for investigators to solve the Dec. 25 attack on the opposition activist and journalist.

“The statements of Tetyana
Chornovol about the president of Ukraine’s involvement in her beating are
groundless. The president instructed Interior
Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko on Dec. 25 to immediately take all necessary
steps to investigate the beating of journalist Tatiana Chornovol. He made a corresponding
request to the General Prosecutor Viktor Pshonka,” according to a Jan. 8 presidential press-survice statement.

While five
suspects remain in custody in the Dec. 25 attack, the one-page the Interior Ministry statement noted that some parts of the investigation cannot be completed until
Chornovol is released from the hospital. 

The woman suffered a broken nose,
concussion and numerous other injuries when a group of men ran her car off the
road and beat the defenseless woman before leaving her on the roadside. Chornovol describes
the attack as attempted murder. The journalist was beaten as she drove home to
her Kyiv Oblast city of Gora. Her dashboard video camera captured the car, the license
plate and images of two of the suspected assailants.

The Interior Ministry statement noted that more than 50
witnesses were already interviewed and more than 20 experts were assigned to
investigate the case.  Video recordings
from all cameras on the road where Chornovol was beaten were seized during the first
hours after the incident happened and analyzed, the presidential statement
said.

Chornovol, in a Jan. 7
interview with Hromadske TV, said that she believes Yanukovych gave the order
to assault her.

The reason, she said, is her
work in exposing alleged high-level corruption among top officials by zeroing
in on documenting their luxurious lifestyles, particularly their homes.
Chornovol, for instance, trespassed on the president’s Mezhyhyria estate to
take photographs of the multimillion-dollar residence that was once
state-owned.

“I was thinking about
this. During the last three years I was working against only one person –
Viktor Fedorovych (Yanukovych),” Chornovol told the public TV station.

Her family, colleagues and
others agree that she was targeted for her oppositional activities and
journalistic investigations.

“This is the personal revenge
for her articles,” Chornovol’s husband Mykola Berezoviy said. He also is not
expecting much from officials investigating the case. “This power is criminal.
So there is no reason to wait for criminal proceedings against  them,”
Berezoviy said.

Political analyst Vitaly Bala
thinks that Yanukovych should not have dignified Chornovol’s accusations with a
response.

“You can say everything you
want, but it is not proved by any facts. So, from my point of view, the
officials should not react neither from political, nor from technological
position,” Bala told the Kyiv Post. At the same time, the president
appoints the top officials so must take responsibility for their performance. “Yanukovych
took so much power that he has to understand the level of his responsibility.
Because it was he who appointed people,” Bala said.

Yanukovych should not react to
Chornovol personally, but rather make a strong statement in support of the law
and protecting journalists, political analyst Vadim Karasiov said.

As the guarantor of the
Constitution, Karasiov said, Yanukovych should state “that he will do
everything to prevent such situations.” 

Kyiv Post staff writer Mariia Shamota can be reached at [email protected]