Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn has sent a letter to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka asking him to give a report on a scuffle in parliament on Dec. 16.
"I’ve sent a letter to the prosecutor general asking him to provide a respective report for the leaders of factions and MPs," Lytvyn said at a morning sitting of parliament on Tuesday, while commenting on the demand by BYT-Batkivschyna and Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense deputies to immediately call the prosecutor general to parliament to deliver a report on the incident.
"There is no objection to speaking openly," the speaker said.
An Interfax-Ukraine reporter said that in response to demands by opposition deputies to immediately dismiss government officials involved in the December 16 brawl, he proposed considering on Friday the issue of terminating the powers of moonlighting deputies.
Lytvyn said that if the issue were to be considered on Tuesday, it would produce no results. At the same time, he did not rule out that the issue would be discussed on Tuesday, if such a decision is taken by the leaders of the parliamentary factions.
While commenting on the opposition’s demands to stop political repression and free political prisoners, Lytvyn proposed creating investigative commissions in parliament to deal with this issue.
"If necessary, let us agree on the creation of temporary investigative commissions," he said.
On December 15, the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine reported that a criminal case had been opened against opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko over the misuse of funds allocated under the Kyoto Protocol and that she had been banned from travelling outside Kyiv.
On December 16, the deputies of the BYT-Batkivschyna faction blocked the parliament’s rostrum and demanded that Tymoshenko’s political persecution be stopped. In the evening, scores of deputies from the pro-presidential Regions Party stormed the presidium and, after a fight in which punches and chairs were thrown, opposition deputies were forced out of the parliament hall. Some opposition lawmakers were injured in the scuffle.
