The Spanish police on May 5 arrested a suspect accused of killing two police officers during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, which ousted then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
The Spanish police said he had been detained in the town of Pucol, Valencia.
Oleksiy Donsky, the chief prosecutor in charge of EuroMaidan cases, told Suspilne television that the Prosecutor General’s Office had not received any information from Spain on the matter. He said that prosecutors had applied for an unspecified suspect’s extradition from Spain but did not disclose his name.
According to sources cited by the Censor.net news site and other media, the suspect is Dmytro Lypovy, a Kharkiv resident who allegedly gave his carbine rifle to protesters Zynovy Parasyuk and Ivan Bubenchyk on Feb. 19, 2014. Parasyuk and Bubenchyk allegedly shot at Berkut riot police officers in the morning of Feb. 20, 2014.
In March 2020 Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court authorized Lypovy’s arrest in absentia.
One of the murder suspects, Bubenchyk, admitted killing police officers in a 2016 interview, although he later retracted his statement. He was charged with murder in 2018 but subsequently fled.
Some commentators, including Сensor.net’s chief editor Yury Butusov, believe the cases against Bubenchyk and Lypovy to be unlawful persecution of EuroMaidan protesters.
Others are more skeptical. Vitaly Tytych, a lawyer for killed EuroMaidan protesters, believes Bubenchyk and Lypovy could have been agent provocateurs, not genuine protesters, and their actions should be thoroughly investigated.
A 2014 law provided for exempting EuroMaidan protesters from criminal responsibility. However, Donsky and Sergii Gorbatuk, the former top investigator for EuroMaidan cases, argued that the law was unconstitutional and null and void.
About 100 protesters and 17 police officers were killed during the EuroMaidan Revolution.
