Employees of the Ukrainian Consulate General in Miliano have visited the platoon sergeant of the first operational battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard named after Serhiy Kulchytsky, Vitaliy Markiv, who had been detained in Italy on suspicion of murdering Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli in Donbas, on July 4, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s consular service department said.
“Consular officers of the Ukrainian Consulate General in Milan visited Markiv in a detention facility. Markiv’s moral and psychological conditions are normal, the detention conditions are satisfactory,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s consular service department said on Facebook on July 4.
Markiv is in Italy’s city of Pavia, where a court hearing on his case had taken place on July 4. “The court did not consider the case on the merits and did not make a decision on changing a restrictive measure imposed on him,” the department said.
At the same time, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry told Interfax-Ukraine that the Ukrainian side was not allowed to enter the courtroom during the hearing in Italy on July 4.
Consuls were meeting with Markiv on July 4, and a new lawyer is likely to be assigned to him, it said.
Markiv’s fellow servicemen said on Facebook on the same day that a hearing on imposing a restrictive measure on the detained Ukrainian was postponed for July 4.
On July 1, Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General Yevhen Yenin said that Markiv had been detained on suspicion of killing Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli near the city of Sloviansk, Donetsk region, in May 2014.
The Ukrainian Consulate General in Milan filed a motion with a court in the city of Pavia seeking grounds and circumstances of Markiv’s detention in Italy. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry expressed concern over Markiv’s detention and arrest in Italy.
Pavia’s Prosecutor’s Office initiated a criminal case regarding the circumstances of the death of Italian and Russian journalists in Donbas in 2014 on the grounds of information provided by a French journalist. The French journalist pointed out during the investigation that the aforementioned journalists’ death was caused by the use of weapons by a unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, where detainee Markiv had served.
