You're reading: Friends of imprisoned father, son petition Obama

Advocates for an imprisoned father and son, Dmytro and Serhiy Pavlychenko, have started an online petition to U.S. President Barack Obama in an attempt to get the American government to take action against at least five Ukrainian officials.

The
petition calls on the Obama administration
“to free the wrongfully
convicted Pavlychenko’s (sic)…and deny entry into the U.S. of former Internal
Affairs Minister Anatoliy Mogilev, Vasyl Farynnyk, the chief investigator of
the internal affairs ministry” as well as “judges who refused to accept the
evidence of innocence Pavlichenko`s (sic) and condemned them to life
imprisonment.”

The petition also demands that their U.S.
bank accounts be arrested and that Gooioord BV, a Dutch real estate developer,
be investigated for “bribery of (Ukrainian) prosecutors, police, judges.”

Dmytro, the father, and his son Serhiy were taken into custody in March 2011 for allegedly murdering 42-year-old Kyiv judge
Serhiy Zubkov that month. Since their incarceration, supporters — mostly fans
of soccer club Dynamo Kyiv — have waged a grassroots and social media advocacy
campaign to free them.  A multilingual
website, theyarenotkillers.com,
in particular, is being used for outreach.

Supporters for the Pavlychenkos say the
pair is innocent
. Some high-profile Ukrainian celebrities, including pop
singer Ruslana Lyzhychko
and Dynamo Kyiv footballer Taras Mikhalyk, have
taken up their cause. The son, Serhiy, was an avid member of the hard-core Dynamo
Kyiv fan club.

On Oct. 2, a Kyiv court found the pair
guilty of murder and sentenced Dmytro to life in prison, and Serhiy to 13
years. An appeals court started hearing the murder case on Jan. 14. The next
hearing is scheduled for Jan. 31.

Under Mogilev’s watch as interior minister,
authorities who investigated and prosecuted the Pavlychenkos said revenge was their
motive for killing Zubkov at the judge’s apartment building on March 21, 2011.
The judge had evicted the Pavlychenko family from their centrally located Kyiv
apartment in a December 2010 ruling in favor of Gooioord BV, a Dutch real
estate developer mentioned in the online petition.

Authorities have maintained
that they conducted an objective investigation into the murder and are certain
the Pavlychenkos are guilty.

Yet on Nov. 7, a high special court
cancelled Zubkov’s eviction ruling of the Pavlychenko family. And on March 24,
2011, three days after Zubkov’s murder, the High Council of Justice, the
government body that fires and hires judges, was supposed to start a hearing
into whether Zubkov had violated judicial ethics.

As a judge, Zubkov had presided over many
property development disputes involving powerful companies and residents. He
made several rulings leading up to his death in favor of the public interest,
including over a property on Honchara Street, just blocks from the Saint Sophia
Square on which the Kyiv
Post had reported
.

In his ruling, he prevented a company from developing a property on 17/23 Honchara Street and denied the developer Hr 560,000 in damages it sought from activists for removing a fence around the development. Zubkov also put a halt to a property development near Kyiv’s Zhovtneva Hospital. And on Sept. 15, 2010, the judge left kindergarten No. 183 in public ownership ruling against another property developer.

The online petition was launched on Jan.
26. It crossed the first threshold to be searchable within WhiteHouse.gov by
reaching 150 signatures within 30 days. It must now reach 100,000 signatures by
Feb. 25 to receive an official response from the White House.

“Petition responses will come from a
variety of administration officials, including staff at the White House,” reads
the U.S. government website. “From time to time President Obama may respond
directly to petitions, but we expect most of responses to come from other administration
officials.”

The petition had collected 1,250 signatures
as of 3 p.m. Kyiv time on Jan. 28.

Anyone 13 years or older can create or sign
an online petition seeking a federal government action on a range of issues.
The website doesn’t specify whether non-U.S. citizens can either start or sign
a petition.

 Kyiv
Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].