You're reading: Jailhouse Watch: Many former top officials remain in jail for months

Editor’s Note: Experts say excessive pre-trial imprisonment is a major human-rights problem in Ukraine, where suspects can be jailed for up to 18 months before trial. The practice violates democratic principles that call for speedy, fair and public trials as well as the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. More than 40,000 people in Ukraine are imprisoned without trial. The Kyiv Post will keep track of this issue through this new feature called “Jailhouse Watch.”

Rights groups say many cases amount to political persecution

More than a dozen former officials from the previous government remained in pretrial detention on March 10, as a Zaporizhia court prepared to try nationalists jailed for defacing statues of Soviet leaders Joseph Stalin and Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first director of the Soviet Union’s secret police.

Former government officials currently behind bars include former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, former acting Defense Minister Valeriy Ivashchenko, former Customs Service Chief Anatoliy Makarenko and Ihor Didenko, former deputy head of Naftogaz.

More than a dozen more former government officials, including former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, have been questioned in various criminal investigations opened by state prosecutors and the Security Service of Ukraine since President Viktor Yanukovych took office on Feb. 25, 2010.

Some are being held in pre-trial confinement, while others, such as Deputy Justice Minister Serhiy Korniychuk, have been released pending trial.

A report published on Feb. 28 by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union and the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group considers many of the cases to be political persecution, a charge that law enforcement agencies and President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration deny.

Former high-ranking government officials in jail

Yuriy Lutsenko, former interior minister.

Arrested in December for alleged misappropriation of state assets.

Pretrial detention extended to April 26.

 

Valeriy Ivashchenko, former acting defense minister.

Arrested in August on suspicion of abuse of office.

Kyiv’s Pechersk district court is scheduled on March 16 at 3 p.m.
to begin hearing the preliminary arguments in the case.

 

Hryhoriy Filipchuk, former environment minister.

Arrested in December on suspicion of abuse of office.

 

 

Viktor Kolbun, former deputy pension fund board chairman.

Arrested in November on suspicion of exceeding authority.

 

Mykola Petrenko, director Ukrmedpostach.

Arrested in December on suspicion of abuse of office.

Tetyana Hrytsun, former state treasury deputy head.

Arrested in July on suspicion of abuse of office.

 

Anatoliy Hrytsenko, former Crimean Parliament speaker.

Arrrested in January on abuse of office charges (illegally allocating land plots).

 

Volodymyr Rabotnyov, former deputy transportation minister.

Charged with revealing state secrets. Remains under house arrest.

 

Trial of Tryzub activists

The prosecutor’s office of Zaporizhia region on March 4 announced that its criminal investigation into the Dec. 28 decapitation of a bust of Josef Stalin is complete. Police in January arrested nine members of the Tryzub nationalist group, jailing all but one of them in pre-trial detention.

The men were originally suspected of blowing up the bust of Stalin in Zaporizhya late on Dec. 31, but the suspected perpetrators of that crime have not been identified.

Police on Jan. 9 detained Vasyl Labaichuk, Andriy Zanuda, Edward Andryushchenko, Roman Khmara, Pylyp Taran, Vitaly Vyshnyuk, Yuriy Ponomarenko, Anatoly Onufriychuk and Vasyl Abramiv for decapitating the Stalin statue days before the explosion. All nine men are jailed on hooliganism charges in January.

The civil society portal Maidan.org.ua on March 7 quoted Andriy Parubiy, a lawmaker within the Our Ukraine parliament faction, as saying Vyshnyuk has been released to a tuberculosis clinic for medical attention pending trial.

Zaporizhia prosecutors on Jan. 10 arrested two members of a second nationalist organization, Svoboda, Yuriy Hudymenko and Artyom Matvieyenko, on similar charges for allegedly daubing paint in May 2010 on the statue of Dzerzhinsky.

Ukraine’s criminal code defines hooliganism as “a flagrant violation of public order motivated by overt disrespect for society, accompanied by particular impudence or exceptional cynicism.” If convicted of the offense, the men could be fined or sentenced to jail for up to three years.

Lawyers for the defense say their clients had no intention of insulting society or expressing disrespect since the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians consider Stalin and Dzerzhinsky as enemies of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, a human-rights watchdog, says the two cases resemble Soviet-era political show trials, which were aimed at intimidating the population and undermining the law in the country.


Ex-Naftogaz, ex-customs officials in jail

Former Naftogaz and State Customs officials have been jailed since last summer for their roles in ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s acquisition 11 billion cubic meters of natural gas from RosUkrEnergo. Naftogaz reportedly dropped the claim after Tymoshenko left power, allowing RosUkrEnergo to reclaim the gas.


Ihor Didenko, former deputy head of Naftogaz.

Arrested in July on suspicion of abuse of office.
A Kyiv appeals court on Feb. 7 extended Didenko’s pretrial confinement to March 10.

Taras Shepitko, former deputy head of the Kyiv regional energy customs service office.

Arrested in July on suspicion of abuse of office.

 

 

Anatoliy Makarenko, former Customs Service head.

Arrested in July on suspicion of abuse of office.
Kyiv Appeals Court on Feb. 7 extended Makarenko’s pretrial confinement to March 10.

Tax protesters face trial

Lawyers representing eight defendants charged with destroying public property on Independence Square in Kyiv during protests against the tax code last fall said on March 3 that police have finished their criminal investigation.

Serhiy Melnychenko, Oleh Akhtyrskiy, Oleksandr Mandych, Roman Fedchuk, Ihor Harkavenko, Oleh Zaplatkyn, Serhiy Kostakov and Vitaliy Gruzinov are accused of causing $25,000 (Hr. 200,000) worth of damage to granite tiles on the square with tent pegs, which protesters used on Nov. 22 to erect eight tents.

Some are also accused of doing $340 (Hr 2,711) worth of damages to the metal fence on Maidan, making a dent and breaking a mirror of the two cars parked on Maidan.

Oleh Levytsky, a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Council monitoring, said heavy-handed treatment of defendants represents political persecution.

“One of the accused, Ihor Harkhavenko, didn’t even arrive at the tent city in Kyiv until Nov. 25, after the tents were erected,” Levytsky said. “The pretrial investigation has resembled a public relations campaign to show the ‘criminal face’ behind the tax code protests.”

Artyom Belov, Harkhavenko’s lawyer, said that “the decision to target these individuals looks like an attempt to frighten other civic activists. I can find no other explanation.”

Oleksandr Danylyuk told the Kyiv Post in January that he and other protest organizers were questioned by police in late December.

“We have information that the police put pressure on some people to say that opposition deputies paid them to raise a ruckus,” Danylyuk said.

Manduch and Harkavenko spent weeks in pre-trial detention before released on appeal. Zaplatkyn and Kostakov remain in jail.