Yevhen Deidei, a lawmaker with the 81-member People’s Front faction, threatened to physically assault Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov in a conversation on Facebook on July 29.
The reporter posted a comment under a post by Deidei, asking the lawmaker to comment on the accusations that he was behind the attack on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine office on July 17.
A group of men stormed into the NABU headquarters in Kyiv on July 17 and broke a camera, doors and a turnstile. The group was led by Ivan Hrabar, an activist and an aide to Deidei. Police were present at the scene but reportedly didn’t intervene.
Deidei, 31, is a suspect in an unlawful enrichment case investigated by NABU. In July 2017, the Prosecutor General’s Office sought to strip Deidei of the immunity from prosecution that he has as a lawmaker, but parliament didn’t approve it.
NABU said in a statement that Deidei could be connected to the attack.
The Kyiv Post reporter sought Deidei’s response to the accusations and wrote a private message to Deidei, but said the lawmaker didn’t open it.
The reporter then posted his question as a comment under the lawmaker’s latest post, in which Deidei wrote about an acquaintance of his who was recently killed by the Russian-separatist forces in Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine.
Deidei initially condemned the journalist for asking a question under a personal post. When the journalist proceeded with the questions, Deidei and his supporters responded with physical threats.
“If I see you in the street I’ll definitely beat your face,” Deidei wrote. “If I were you, I’d ride home in a police car for safety.”
Several of his supporters, including a man who the Ukrainian media identified as a participant of the attack on the NABU office, also posted physical threats.
Sukhov said he is going to report the threats to the authorities.
Kyiv Post Chief Editor Brian Bonner said the newsroom is concerned with the lawmaker’s behavior and that the conversation should not have escalated as it did online.
“It is unthinkable for an elected official to publicly threaten a journalist,” said Bonner. “When any person with authority and followers publicly condones physical violence against journalists, it is also an assault on freedom of speech. We expect this threat to be investigated by the authorities. Many journalists have been killed in Ukraine since independence, and threats like this need to be taken seriously.”
According to a 2017 investigation by Slidstvo.info, Deidei was prosecuted for mugging at gunpoint seven people in Odesa in 2011. The court found him guilty and gave him a delayed sentence of three years in jail, but the prosecutor’s office allegedly revoked the sentence and sent the case back for additional investigation in September 2014, a month before the parliamentary election where Deidei ran for parliament on People’s Front ballot. Deidei has refused to comment on this, telling Slidstvo.info that “the authorities are checking it and will assess this objectively” and calling the report “dirt and rumors.”
