Odesa - Passions flared at a preliminary hearing at a court in Odesa on Jan. 22 of one of two cases opened in connection with deadly clashes in the city on May 2, 2014, an Interfax correspondent reported.
Followers and enemies of the Maidan movement came to blows in the morning after singing the national anthem of Ukraine and former Soviet song “Holy War.” Police had to interfere.
Later, Maidan activists assaulted a reporter for the Taimer website, accusing him of links to former parliamentary deputy Ihor Markov, who allegedly takes an active pro-Russian position.
Taimer editor-in-chief Yuriy Tkachov said the website would seek legal action under a law that punishes attempts to prevent journalists from doing their work because “our colleague began to be beaten after he said what media organization he worked for.”
Violence on Odesa’s Hretska Square on May 2 that is being invested by the Malynovsky District Court claimed 48 lives and left more than 200 people injured. The hearing of the case started last month but was interrupted as some of the accused failed to arrive at the court.
Altogether 21 people are on trial, 10 of whom, including two Russian nationals, are in custody and the rest under house arrest. All the accused are anti-Maidan activists, and all are charged with rioting, but one is, in addition, charged with illegal use of a firearm.
The reason for the other May 2 case are events in Kulikove Polye, where more people were killed than on Hretska Square. That case is still under investigation. There are 78 suspects in it, but it has not been disclosed which party to the conflict they represent or what offenses they are suspected of.
Earlier, it had been announced that investigators had obtained incontrovertible evidence that the May 2 riots had been deliberately organized.
Several days after the violence, extremist activists and several police officers were arrested. Simultaneously, an arrest warrant was issued for then Odesa police chief Dmytro Fuchedzhi, who had gone into hiding and later fled Ukraine.
