Police have opened criminal proceedings due to the abduction by unknown persons of Automaidan leader Dmytro Bulatov.
“Criminal proceedings have been launched under Part 2, Article 146 of
the Criminal Code of Ukraine ‘illegal confinement or abduction.’ An
investigative team consisting of experienced employees of investigative
and operational units has been created. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry
is overseeing the investigation,” the public liaisons department of the
Interior Ministry’s main office in Kyiv reported.
The police reported that Ukrainian MP Petro Poroshenko turned to the
police at 2330 on Jan. 30 stating that Automaidan activist Bulatov
had been taken to a private clinic in Kyiv.
An investigative team of the Darnytske district department of police
in Kyiv could not question the victim in detail regarding his condition.
The acting chief of the Kyiv police, Valeriy Mazan, said that
according to Bulatov’s friends, on Jan. 22, at the intersection of
one of the streets in the Desniansky district of Kyiv, unknown men hit
him with a blunt object in the head and pushed him into a car, drove
away in an unknown direction, illegally held him, and left him in a
forest on Jan. 30.
Bulatov reached the village of Vyshenky, Boryspil district, Kyiv
region, and appealed to a local resident, who informed the victim’s
friends about his whereabouts. Then the man was taken to a clinic.
“According to the preliminary diagnosis of doctors, the victim
sustained numerous bruises on the body and an incised ear wound,” reads
the statement.
The police also said that it received a report on Jan. 30 at 2330
that a car driven by Bulatov before he disappeared was found in a
parking area in the Dniprovsky district of Kyiv. The car was delivered
to the Darnytske district department of police.
Police officers are conducting a number of necessary measures to establish the circumstances of the crime.
Kyiv Regional Police spokesman Mykola Zhukovych told Interfax-Ukraine
that the police cannot interrogate Bulatov as a victim as part of
criminal proceedings, as his doctors are not permitting them to talk
with him.
“We will try to interview him, but the doctors have not currently
given us the opportunity to talk with him, and all information comes
from his friends or lawyer,” he said, adding that it was unclear when
such an opportunity would arise.
He said that the case on Bulatov’s abduction had been submitted for
investigation to the Interior Ministry’s main office in Kyiv region.
Last week the media reported that Bulatov did not answer his mobile phone from Jan. 23.
On Jan. 23, Bulatov’s wife wrote a statement at the police through
her lawyer regarding the disappearance of her husband. She appealed to
the Darnytske district department of Police in Kyiv.
Bulatov was found alive on Jan. 30. He was held by unknown men. He had been severely beaten.
