The European Court of Human Rights has received a complaint from lawyers for Dmytro Reva, a defendant in the case of the "Dnipropetrovsk terrorists," against long-term groundless detention, according to lawyer Oksana Tomchuk, the coordinator of the 4Reva public initiative.
“Last October, the European Court [of Human Rights] received our first complaint [against unlawful arrest and detention]. On Feb. 4, 2012, we filed a second complaint with the European court – against long-term groundless detention,” she said at a news conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
She said that the complaint was similar to that submitted to the ECHR by former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. In July 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the former interior minister’s arrest violated human rights. The court obliged Ukraine to pay 15,000 euros to Lutsenko as compensation for moral damages.
“This complaint was accepted for consideration, and we received respective documents,” the lawyer said.
She also said that Reva’s relatives had been unable to see him for nine months and that prosecutors “are making untrue statements to discredit Reva.”
In her opinion, such actions by the prosecutor’s office are aimed at diverting people’s attention from the unexplained situation surrounding the bomb blasts in Dnipropetrovsk.
“Reva is set to prove his innocence. His testimony has been confirmed by documents,” Tomchuk said, adding that the evidence of Reva’s connection to the crime, based on the case materials, lies only in the fact that he was in the center of the city when the explosions occured.
The lawyer also expressed surprise that the defense team had for nine months been unable to achieve the opening of a criminal case on the falsification of the evidence of Reva’s guilt.
On April 27, 2012, four explosions occurred in a one-hour span in Dnipropetrovsk, injuring 31 people, including 10 teenagers, 26 victims were hospitalized. All the explosive devices were planted in concrete trash containers.
In May 2012, police officers arrested four residents of Dnipropetrovsk. In particular, Viktor Sukachov and Vitaliy Fedoriak were charged with the creation of a terrorist group (Part 1, Article 258-3 of the Criminal Code), attempt to commit a crime (Part 2, Article 15 of the Criminal Code), a terrorist attack committed on preliminary collusion by a group of persons, which caused the deaths of people (Parts 2-3, Article 258) and illegal handling of explosives (Part 1, Article 263 of the Criminal Code). Lev Prosvirnin and Reva were charged with a terrorist attack committed on preliminary collusion by a group of persons (Part 5, Article 27, Part 2, Article 258 of the Criminal Code), and Prosvirnin was separately charged with the illegal handling of explosives (Part 1, Article 263 of the Criminal Code).
All of them were also accused of organizing three terrorist attacks in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia in October-November 2011.
At a meeting of the Industrialny District Court of Dnipropetrovsk on Dec. 25, defendant Fedoriak fully admitted his guilt in the crime, while defendant Sukavhov partly admitted his guilt, saying he did not understand everything in the indictment.
Defendants Prosvirnin and Reva pleaded not guilty.
The court received for consideration 25 civil lawsuits for a total of Hr 1.522 million.
