The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that the Ukrainian authorities should pay EUR 39,000 to Ukrainians Yuriy Fedorchenko, Zoya Lozenko, and Petro Tytarenko, the court reported in its press release posted on Thursday.
The statements of claim of Fedorchenko and Lozenko read that on
October 28, 2012, a high-ranked policeman set the house of Yuriy
Fedorchenko on fire. Five relatives of the plaintiffs died in the fire.
Relying on Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human
Rights, the applicants complained that state authorities had failed to
conduct a thorough and effective investigation into the circumstances of
their death. They further cited Article 14 (prohibition against
discrimination), alleging that the crime had had racist motives.
The court ruled that the Ukrainian authorities had violated Articles 2
and 14 of the convention, and obliged them to pay compensation worth a
total of EUR 20,000 to Lozenko in non-pecuniary damage, and an extra EUR
8,000 to both plaintiffs to compensate them for their legal costs.
Another applicant, Petro Tytarenko, claimed that the Ukrainian
authorities wrongly accused him of murder and the attempted murder of
several police officers, committed in June 1996, and of the illegal
possession of firearms, and sentenced him to 15 years’ imprisonment.
Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment),
he complained about the poor conditions of his pre-trial detention and
alleged that he had been held in a cage during the court hearings in the
appeal proceedings. Further relying on Article 5 (right to liberty and
security), he also alleged in particular that his pre-trial detention
had been unreasonably long. He also complained that he was banned from
seeing his relatives during the court sitting.
The court stated that Ukrainian officials violated Article 3 (custody
conditions), Article 5 paragraph 3 (long pre-trial detention), Article 5
paragraph 4 (illegal detention), Article 8 (right to respect private
and family life), as well as Article 13 (right to an effective legal
defence).
The court obliged Ukrainian authorities to pay Tytarenko EUR 10,000
to compensate for non-pecuniary damages and EUR 1,000 – to compensate
him for his legal costs.
