You're reading: Ukrainian prosecutors find no crime in Svoboda’s attack on National Television Company’s director general

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has closed the criminal case concerning an attack on Oleksandr Panteleimonov, acting general director of the National Television Company of Ukraine, by members of the parliamentary faction Svoboda. 

“On August 14, the criminal case was closed on the basis of Item 2 of Part 1 of Article 284 of the Code of Criminal Procedure due to the absence of evidence of a crime in their actions,” the press service for the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office told Interfax.

The report says the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has found no evidence of a crime, specifically, no violations of Article 171 of the Criminal Code (obstruction of journalistic activities) in the parliamentarians’ actions because Panteleimonov was not a journalist, but the director of a television company when the incident occurred. The parliamentarians’ actions should contain evidence of a crime against a person (a crime enshrined by Articles 125 and 126), such criminal proceedings can only be initiated by a private person and such a charge can only be entered in the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations at the request of the aggrieved person. The prosecutors said Panteleimonov has not made such requests.

The press service for the Prosecutor General’s office also said a copy of the decision to close the criminal case had been given to the director of the television company and he did not object to the closing of the case.

According to earlier reports, members of the Svoboda party in the Ukrainian parliament (Ihor Miroshnichenko, Oleksandr Myrny, Bohdan Beniuk, and Andriy Illyenko) forced Oleksandr Panteleimonov, acting director of the National Television Company of Ukraine, to resign on March 16. A video posted on the Internet shows the parliamentarians forcing Panteleimonov to write his resignation, beating him on the face and head.

The incident followed the broadcasting by First National Television of the celebrations of the joining of Crimea to Russia held in the Kremlin Union House. The Ukrainian parliamentarians also expressed their outrage about the “dissemination of the lies and Moscow propaganda by a television financed with taxpayer money.”

The Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case. The Interior Ministry said the police would join the investigation if the Prosecutor General’s Office decided it should do so. Forensic tests were conducted during the investigation.