You're reading: Lutsenko: ‘Government settling accounts with me’

Former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko has said he is sure that the government is settling accounts with him by leaving him in custody.

"I think that most people understand that regardless of formal details, the reason [for my detention] is a political reprisal by [President Viktor] Yanukovych against an opponent," he said in an interview with the Kommersant-Ukraine publication given in the Kyiv city clinical emergency hospital.

Lutsenko also said that many people hardly remembered why he was in jail and which charges had been brought against him.

While commenting on the court’s decision to extend his detention on the grounds that his defenders have not yet examined the criminal case opened against their client, Lutsenko said that his defense had long renounced their right to examine the criminal case.

"My defense has long renounced their right to examine the criminal case and immediately sent a petition to Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka to change the measure of restraint from arrest to travel restrictions, because absolutely all, even far-fetched reasons for my detention in the cell, have been exhausted. But there is only silence in response. We even sent a petition to the president as the guarantor of the constitutional rights of citizens. The answer was the same," he said.