Statements by former MP Andriy Shkil on obtaining political asylum in the Czech Republic in connection with his prosecution in Ukraine are groundless and are aimed at misleading the public and the international community, the Interior Ministry's media liaisons department said on Friday.
Shkil was actually charged under Article 71 of the 1960 Criminal Code
– mass riots. Therefore, he was arrested in March 2001. In April 2002,
Shkil was released.
“Under the current law, the statute of limitations for prosecuting a
person for a serious crime is ten years. Accordingly, this period
expired in March 2011, that is when ten years passed after the incident.
Therefore, there are no legal grounds to prosecute Shkil,” the
ministry’s press service reported.
As reported, Shkil said earlier he did not rule out that he would
seek political asylum in the Czech Republic, that political persecutions
against him had never stopped and a case on the events on March 9, 2001
outside the presidential administration during the “Ukraine without
Kuchma” rally had not been closed. He also confirmed reports that part
of his property had been arrested in Ukraine and said that he did not
know the reason for this.
