A court could deliver guilty verdicts to those responsible for the Odesa tragedy as early as this year, said Ukraine's interior Minister Arseniy Avakov.
“All cases over the Odesa tragedy have been handed over to the court… There is utmost clarity over this issue. The inquiry is complete, and I do not know what can stop the court from making the decision and confirming the indictment before the end of this year,” the minister told a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday, Oct. 2.
In an interview with the Fokus magazine earlier, Avakov expressed hope that the first verdicts would be issued this fall.
Forty-eight people died and over were 200 injured during mass riots in Odesa on May 2, 2014. Most victims died at the Trade Unions House.
The inquiry found that the mass disturbances in Odesa had been organized and planned deliberately.
A few days later law enforcers arrested active members of extremist organizations and several police officers. Concurrently, a hunt was launched for the former chief of the Odesa regional police, Dmytro Fuchedzhi. He crossed the Ukrainian border and is now hiding from the investigation.
On Sept. 25, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko stated that three people had already been held accountable over the May 2 events in Odesa, but that Fuchedzhi was still on the run. The head of state asked Russia for help in bringing Fuchedzhi back to Ukraine to face trial.
On the same day, the Interior Minister’s advisor Zorian Shkiriak said that the ministry’s Main Investigative Directorate had completed the inquiry into the May 2 disturbances in Odesa.
