Ukrainian pop singer and former parliamentarian Ruslana Lyzhychko has joined the growing advocacy campaign to free the incarcerated father and son, Dmytro and Serhiy Pavlychenko, who supporters say were wrongfully convicted in October for murdering a judge.
Lyzhychko, 39, at a Dec. 3 press conference in Kyiv, announced that she’s devoting her latest album to the fight against “the lawless, arbitrary, and bias judicial branch of government.”
“I can’t remain silent anymore,” said Lyzhychko, who sat handcuffed and flanked by two masked camouflaged guards. “It’s really frightening to live in this country…in which every Ukrainian cannot feel safe when those who are supposed to uphold the rule of law in Ukraine create lawlessness and rule with political, economic, administrative motives.”
The pop singer said the Pavlychenko case “personifies the arbitrariness of the judicial system in Ukraine.”
However, police and prosecutors say they conducted an “objective and unbiased investigation” into the March 21, 2011 murder of 42-year-old Judge Serhiy Zubkov. On Oct. 2, a Kyiv court found the Pavlychenkos guilty, and sentenced Dmytro the father, to life in prison, and son, Serhiy to 13 years.
An appeals court is scheduled to start hearing the case on Jan. 14.
The victim, Zubkov, died of knife stab and gunshot wounds inside the building where he lived. Witnesses said that two people had entered the building; one sat in a wheelchair.
The police immediately focused their investigation on the Pavlychenkos and arrested them three days later.
As a judge, Zubkov presided over many property development disputes between powerful companies and residents. He made several rulings in favor of the public interest, including over a property on Honchara Street near Saint Sophia Square, on which the Kyiv Post reported.
Zubkov also had approved a notice to evict the Pavlychenkos from their apartment in favor of a Dutch-registered property developer.
Dmytro Pavlychenko had publicly fought the developer in Kyiv courts and had filed complaints against the police and Zubkov. Police said revenge was Serhiy’s motive for killing the judge.
Urban activist Ihor Lutsenko said that police should investigate property developers who’ve lost court cases over which Zubkov had presided. Some of them have deployed violence in disputes, Lutsenko claimed. “I can recall at least two powerful corporations whose profits were negatively influenced by Zubkov’s decision in the past, I personally risked my life, because one developer asked a couple of people with metal scraps to threatened …the Pavlychenkos look more like victims of system,” he said.
Lutsenko also alleged that key witnesses of Zubkov’s murder “ complained that they (were) under pressure from authorities, they are just forced to support ‘official’ version that it was the Pavlychenkos who killed.”
Advocates for the Pavlychenkos, including Volodymyr Shyroshenko, a retired lieutenant-colonel in the police who is currently a lawyer and friend of 20 years of Serhiy Pavylchenko, said it is unlikely that a person who abided by the law and went public with his property dispute is guilty.
However, police said they found a piece of paper containing Zubkov’s home address at the father’s residence and bullets of the type used to kill the judge in his car. Moreover, investigators said the father’s fingerprints were at the crime scene.
The murder weapons were never found.
Supporters for the Pavlychenkos claim that evidence was planted and the search of a car and residence was conducted unlawfully. Advocates also note that none of the six witnesses, including an eyewitness who came face-to-face with one of Zubkov’s assailants, could initially identify the killers.
Moreover, witnesses said the killers were between 25 and 30 year old, whereas the father is nearly 50 and the son was 18 at the time.
An advocacy campaign initially emerged consisting of mostly hard-core Dynamo Kyiv football fans when the father and son were placed in pre-trial detention. Hundreds of Dynamo Kyiv football fans staged a rally on Nov. 25 in Shevchenko Park to call for the release of the jailed Serhiy and Dmytro Pavlychenko.
Many are friends of one of the convicted murderers, 19-year-old Serhiy, also a big football fan.
The family’s supporters are demanding a new investigation.
Dynamo Kyiv fans have launched a multilingual website, theyarenotkillers.com, and are using social media to spread the word. People are being urged to write letters to European members of parliament and marches have been organized.
Football fans in Europe have joined the movement by hanging banners at games that read, “Freedom to the Pavlychenkos,” as far away as Chelyabinsk, St. Petersburg and Moscow in Russia, to Silkeborg in Denmark, Kladno in the Czech Republic and in Austria’s Vienna.
Now the movement has grown beyond the network of European football fans to include pop stars, as well as other strata of society.
Serhiy Pavylchenko initially confessed to the murder while in custody but later retracted his testimony in court. He said his confession was forced by police brutality.
Taras Kuzmenko, a senior Dynamo Kyiv fan club member, told the Kyiv Post that the Pavlychenkos were denied their lawyer for the first week in custody, when the alleged confession took place. While in pretrial detention, the father wrote an open letter to the media alleging that the police had promised not to convict his son or harass his family if he would confess.
Kuzmenko added that the group will seek to forge alliances with human rights groups should the Pavlychenkos lose in the appeals court. The Pavlychenkos’ lawyer, Tetyana Shevchenko, said a court will hear the case on Dec. 14.
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected]
