The American director of a European Union-funded tourism promotion project in Simferopol was attacked by an unknown assailant after a brief verbal exchange over the anti-goverment EuroMaidan protests early on Feb. 15.
Jeffrey
Luebbe, 36, needed two stitches near his right eye, suffered a
bloody nose and a swollen lip after being hit in the head five times by a man aged “25-35 years with short brown hair and 180
centimeters in height.”
Numerous
phone calls placed with the Autonomous Region of Crimea’s Interior Ministry’s
number listed on its website went unanswered. But according to Luebbe, police have
classified the case as an act of hooliganism. A medical forensic exam is scheduled for Feb.
16.
Luebbe
said he left the 7 Piatnits (7
Fridays) night club in the Crimean capital at 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 15 with two colleagues, a man and a woman. As
two of them stood smoking near the exit and speaking English, according to
Luebbe, the unknown assailant approached the male colleague and “asked whether
he supported EuroMaidan.”
When
the stranger heard Luebbe’s colleague respond yes, he “very quickly…got
animated and within another minute he was shouting, pacing back and forth in
front of us on the street, and cursing at us,” said Luebbe. “He pushed my male
friend, maybe hit him. He cursed especially at my female friend, loud enough
for the whole street to hear. Immediately a small crowd gathered, watching,
doing nothing. He continued to circle us and curse and hit me a few times in
the face, and kicked me in the groin 2-3 separate times. Once I fell backward
into a trash can outside the cafe but got back up.”
When
Luebbe said he was just a “foreigner, this is not my country,” the attacker
became angrier.
Luebbe said the assailant’s violence escalated without “any further conversation
or argument about EuroMaidan.”
Luebbe
said he hit the assailant once in the face in self-defense after which the
attacker said: “well, finally.”
The
whole episode lasted about five minutes, he said.
An
ambulance took Luebbe to Semashko Hospital where he was
examined by a surgeon and given stitches, then had X-rays of his head and torso
taken.
“I was supposed to
receive a tomography but the machine was not working and the specialist was
absent. Later after I complained of a strong pain in my groin, they sent
me to an urologist, who checked me quickly and said I was ok,” said Luebbe.
During the incident,
Luebbe said he was more worried about the crowd that had gathered on the street
numbering 7-10 people.
“Nobody tried to stop
him. I was thinking that if I hit him in return, they could turn on us and say
we had initiated it. I don’t know if they knew him, or were together, or
not. Eventually I did hit him once, in the face, in self-defense, while he
circled around me,” he said.
Luebbe said he identified the attacker to police after watching recorded video footage from inside the nightclub at the police station while giving an official statement.
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be
reached at [email protected].
