You're reading: Police guarding Artek director

According to Artek’s press service, two plain-clothes police officers were posted to pretect Borys Novozhylov, the director-general of the Artek international children’s center (Crimea), after he was transferred from the hospital’s intensive therapy unit to a regular October 23.

In particular, Lozova was unable to say whether the police officers were posted there to protect Novozhylov against threats to his life or to prevent him from disappearing. According to Lozova, Novozhylov intends to send a statement to the mass media through her on Saturday, October 24.

The press service of the Interior Affairs Ministry did not confirm or deny the information that police guards have been posted near Novozhylov’s hospital bed. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Novozhylov was taken to the Feofania clinical hospital at about 19:00 on October 18.

Police searched apartments belonging to Novozhylov’s relatives in Kyiv on October 16. The main police department is investigating a criminal case (launched under Article 156 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which deals with perversion of minors) connected with allegations of sexual abuse of children at Artek.

A suspect has been arrested in connection with this criminal case, and a court has extended the period of detention of the suspect to four months. Internet-based publications have published a copy of an appeal made to President Viktor Yuschenko (allegedly drafted by Parliamentary Deputy Hryhorii Omelchenko of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc) by parliamentary deputies, in which they claimed that Artek’s Director-General Novozhylov, the center’s chief doctor Henrich Ratt, its priest Vadym Paevksyi, and Parliamentary Deputy Viktor Ukolov of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc were involved in perversion of children at the Artek international children’s center.

According to media reports that emerged later, parliamentary deputies Serhii Teriokhin and Ruslan Bohdan (both members of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc) are also involved in the case.All these parliamentary deputies have denied involvement in the case.