You're reading: International report finds numerous failures in Maidan murders investigation

The investigation into the murders of activists during the EuroMaidan revolution was inadequate, biased and, now, possibly even dead in the water. These are some of the conclusions of the Council of Europe’s International Advisory Group that studied the process, which has been led by Ukraine's general prosecutor's office in conjunction with the police.


The group’s report, released on March 31, found that the investigation was hampered by numerous “failures”, including a lack of willingness to investigate the violence, an insufficient number of investigators, and a lack of independence and transparency.

The advisory group was set up last spring specifically to oversee the investigation and ensure that it met the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights at the request of President Petro Poroshenko.

The bad marks come after the Ukrainian government pulled out all the stops to ensure justice for the victims and their family members of what has been classified as a crime against humanity, the massacre of more than a hundred peaceful protesters in central Kyiv in February 2014.

Yet, even more than a year later, there is still no clearer picture today of who was really behind the shootings, and the endless unanswered questions about the killings have now been amplified by new questions about the investigation itself.

Immediately after the scathing report was published, the General Prosecutor’s office announced two new suspects in the investigation into Maidan violence: former acting Kyiv police chief Valeriy Mazan and his deputy, Petro Fedchuk, who are accused of organizing a crackdown on protesters on Feb. 18-19 that killed 13 people and injured more than a hundred others. Both men have been placed on a wanted list.

The investigation, largely seen as a test of the new Ukrainian government’s ability to turn a new leaf and rid itself of past corruption, has been faced with setbacks from the very beginning.

Much of the evidence implicating Berkut officers in the shootings – guns believed to have been used, documents and even suspects – “disappeared” in the chaos that followed the tragedy, Nicolas Bratza, chair and former president of the European Court of Human Rights and an author of the new report, noted at a press conference on March 31.

The accused mastermind, Dmitry Sadovnik, fled the country last October, after a court’s decision to release him from custody triggered a brawl with victims’ relatives in the courtroom and numerous threats against him and his family.

He was accused of handing down the order to shoot protesters on Feb. 20, when 39 were killed, according to official data from the Interior Ministry.

Last year, then-General Prosecutor Vitaly Yarema said 17 Berkut officers were suspected of involvement in the shootings, and 14 of them had fled to Russia.

Many have accused ousted President Viktor Yanukovych of ordering his riot police to shoot protesters to regain control after weeks of street protests.The accusation prompted many Berkut officers to flee the country in fear for their lives, many of them to Russia.

Two remaining defendants, former Berkut officers Pavel Abroskin and Sergei Zinchenko, face their next hearing on April 2, when the jury trial is set to begin.

The lawyers of the accused have echoed the criticism voiced by the Council of Europe’s advisory panel, describing the investigation as a travesty of justice that threatens to bring shame to the country’s judicial system and saying the entire case against the former Berkut officers is based on flimsy evidence.

“There is no direct evidence whatsoever that these men caused the protesters’ deaths,” said Alexander Goroshinsky, one of the lawyers for Abroskin, at a press conference on March 30.

“You can’t say they are guilty of shooting dozens of protesters dead just because they were seen in the area wearing yellow ribbons around the time of the tragedy,” Goroshinksy said, noting that the prosecutors’ main argument was that the accused were present at the time of the killings.

“But hundreds of people were there,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they all killed protesters.”

While the upcoming trial focuses on the killings of 39 protesters between Feb. 18-20, the Council of Europe’s International Advisory Group on Ukraine noted that the authorities’ failure to open any sort of probe into earlier violence during the protests had seriously hindered any further investigation.

Igor Varfolomeyev, a lawyer for Zinchenko, argued at a press conference on March 30 that authorities had apprehended the wrong men in the frantic drive to appease the public by finding the culprits.

Varfolomeyev also slammed what he described as “blatant pressure on the courts” from above and the lack of a presumption of innocence.

“We’re not the ones breaking the rules, breaking the laws,” he said, noting that all the arrests in the case had been made immediately after reshufflings in the prosecutors’ office.

“These coincidences make you think,” he said, saying the investigation was more about politics than justice.

While the report by the Council of Europe’s International Advisory Group on Ukraine offered criticism of the investigation, Bratza stressed that the group could not comment on the findings of the investigation or the accused, as the group had been tasked only with monitoring the probe’s progress.

All three defense lawyers maintained that the sheer chaos of the Maidan protests had prevented authorities from being able to get a clear picture of what really happened – and that they had then rushed to find someone to pin the shootings on.

“It’s easier to find scapegoats to pin it on than to admit, ‘Sorry, the circumstances of this case are so complicated that we just can’t figure it out’,” says Stefan Reshko, another lawyer for Abroskin.

Goroshinsky said he would not rule out that some sort of “third party” had been behind the shootings in order to destabilize the situation – a theory which Bratza said “remained an open question.”

“There is insufficient evidence to be able to determine whether or not some third party was involved,” Bratza said while presenting the advisory group’s report along with fellow authors Volodymyr Butkevych, former Judge of the European Court of Human Rights; and Oleg Anpilogov, a former prosecutor in Ukraine.

The “third party” theory has been floated by both sides in the Ukraine conflict, with pro-Kremlin types accusing Western intelligence agencies of involvement and Ukrainian officials pointing the finger at Russia.

Bratza steered clear of speculating on who was behind the tragedy, lauding Ukrainian authorities for their cooperation in the “novel and demanding form of inquiry at a very challenging time for the country,” but saying that such challenges “could not excuse the failings” that have been uncovered in the investigation.

“There is a very real problem of impunity and lack of accountability for law enforcement officers,” Bratza said, noting that one of the panel’s main concerns was the fact that the Interior Ministry had been given a vital role in investigating crimes believed to have been committed by its own employees.

Bratza also noted that the panel had “strong grounds to believe that the Interior Ministry’s attitude (in investigating the crimes on Maidan) was obstructive.”

He spoke of “intimidation tactics” used by members of the Interior Ministry during questioning of Berkut officers, saying there had been instances in which those being questioned were led into a building surrounded by fellow officers – a fact which may have prevented them from speaking openly about what they witnessed during the protests.

The Interior Ministry issued a statement denouncing Bratza’s statements as “baseless” shortly after the report was released.

The fact that there had been three different general prosecutors within the year of the investigation also hindered the process, Bratza said, as it affected the “overall consistency and direction of the investigation.”

Noting that “substantial progress” had not been made in the investigation, the report warned that the “serious investigative deficiencies … have undermined the authorities’ ability to establish the circumstances of the Maidan-related crimes and to identify those responsible.”

For this reason, the investigation failed to meet the requirements of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Among the other flaws of the investigation, Bratza said there had been insufficient information sharing between law enforcement agencies conducting the probe, with poor cooperation between the Interior Ministry, General Prosecutor’s Office and the Special Investigation Division set up specifically for the Maidan crimes.

Despite the heavy criticism in the report, Thorbjorn Jagland, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, offered some positive remarks on the Ukrainian government’s actions.

Praising the authorities’ “unreserved commitment” to reform and fight against impunity by law enforcement officials, Jagland said the government was determined to show that “beatings and killings with impunity have absolutely no place in this nation anymore.”