Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will not travel from Russia to Ukraine to face questioning by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Office, Vitaly Serdyuk, the defense lawyer of the ousted president told the Russian news agency TASS on Jan. 23.
“The (prosecutor’s) summons is illegal. However, his defense will come to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office at the appointed time and will inform the investigators why Yanukovych will not to come in person,” said Serdyuk.
Serdyuk said Yanukovych’s life is still under threat in Ukraine, and that the danger has grown since the fugitive former Ukrainian president gave testimony in November via Skype during a trial relating to killings of protesters by police during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in late-February 2014 after being ousted in the EuroMaidan popular revolution, gave testimony during the trial of five ex-employees of the Interior Ministry’s now-disbanded Berkut riot squad. The five are suspected of shooting at least 40 anti-government protesters on Institutska Street in February 2014.
The Prosecutor’s General office published a statement on its website that Yanukovych must come to the main Military Prosecutor’s Office on Jan.30 for questioning, as he is a suspect in several criminal cases.
After the disgraced president gave his Skype testimony on Nov. 28, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told the ex-president that he was suspected of treason.
Despite Serdyuk’s protests that Lutsenko’s actions were illegal, as his client was witness and not a suspect in the Berkut case, the prosecutor general said he had decided to take the opportunity to inform Yanukovych that he was under suspicion of treason, as the former president was hiding from Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies.
“The note (of suspicion) was sent to all known addresses for Yanukovych in Russia, and to his lawyer. I accuse him of opening the door to the aggressor,” Lutsenko said in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynsky district court in November.
Ukrainian prosecutors obtained a photocopy of Yanukovych’s appeal to Russia to bring its troops to Ukraine in March 2014, and Lutsenko said he considers the document to be conclusive evidence of treason.
On Jan.20, the Pechersk District court of Kyiv agreed to the demands of Ukraine’s military prosecutor’s office and allowed them to conduct a special pre-trial criminal investigation in absentia into Yanukovych’s suspected treason.
In an interview to 1+1 TV channel on Jan. 22, Lutsenko said prosecutors planned to finish the pre-trial investigation into Yanukovych in February.
“In February we will finish the investigation, announce the results, and then the trial will start. We will do everything not rush and to make it watertight. We have enough evidence against him,” Lutsenko said.
However, Serdyuk told TASS that Yanukovych’s defense was confident, as Ukrainian prosecutors frequently violate procedural norms during investigations.
“With such (an illegal) summons and a wide range of other violations, the (Ukrainian) prosecutors actually help the defense to do its job,” Serdyuk said.
