The Rostov regional court in Russia is ready to organize a videolink with the Obolonsky district court in Kyiv to ensure participation by Ukraine’s ex-president Viktor Yanukovych in a May 18 preliminary hearing of a treason case, providing the Ukrainian court requests it to do so in a manner established by the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, a spokesperson for Aver Lex, a law firm, told Interfax.
This was the Rostov court’s reply to the lawyers’ request to arrange for Yanukovych’s participation in the preliminary hearing in the format of an international videoconference.
“Provided the Rostov regional court receives a relevant request from the Obolonsky district court for the provision of international legal assistance, it [the request] will be considered in a due manner,” the court’s deputy chairman Vladimir Nosov wrote in the reply.
Yanukovych’s legal team has insisted on the need to organize a videoconference as part of international legal assistance because that is the only way to ensure compliance with Article 86 of the Ukrainian Criminal-Proceedings Code (admissibility of evidence).
In addition, the lawyers point out that only an official from the nearest court to Yanukovych’s whereabouts can be authorized by the Obolonsky court to hand the ex-president, under his signature, a memo of his due-process rights and conduct his passport identification.
The lawyer said that the videoconferencing method proposed by the Obolonsky court is not envisaged by the effective Criminal-Proceedings Code of Ukraine.
