Judges with Kyiv’s Shevchenko District Court on April 20 heard nearly half the 44 civil claims for moral damages against former Kyiv City Administrator Oleksandr Popov. The accusations are related to criminal charges that Popov faces for the violent breakup of a peaceful rally on Nov. 30, 2013 during the early days of the EuroMaidan Revolution.
In a courtroom interview with the Kyiv Post on March 23, Popov said he had been waiting 16 months for this trial. He maintains his innocence and believes the case is meant to divert the public’s attention from the real perpetrators of the Nov. 30, 2013 crimes. While he didn’t want to specify who they might be, he says it is easy to guess who is responsible.
“I think times have changed in this country and justice will prevail. I count on this. Otherwise I will seek justice in the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.
During court proceedings on March 23, Popov challenged the prosecutor’s motion to prohibit video recording of the trial. “I want everything I said and am going to say to be available to the public. I do not understand the prosecution’s position on the matter. They should be interested in transparency more than I am,” he told the Kyiv Post after the trial.
Regarding the civil claims, 84 demonstrators are seeking more than Hr 23 million in damages for for being violently dislodged from Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv on Nov. 30, 2013.
Appointed by ex-President Viktor Yanukovych as Kyiv city administrator Nov. 15, 2010, replacing the elected Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy, Popov also faces criminal charges of abuse of power.
He had allegedly assisted law enforcement in disbursing the rally and for violating peaceful assembly rights, according to the 23-page indictment that prosecutors filed in court on Feb. 13.
The trial is scheduled to resume on May 15, according to Channel 5.
Ukraine’s criminal procedural code allows victims to lodge civil claims in criminal proceedings to receive compensation for damages.
Popov faces up to five years in prison and the Hr 23 million fine equivalent to $1 million, prosecutors said in a Feb. 13 statement.
Dozens of students and activists protesting Yanukovych’s refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union remained at Kyiv’s Independence Square after 4 a.m. on Nov. 30, before police violently broke up the encampment. As a result, 35 people were admitted to hospital emergency rooms, while an unknown number were detained, 1+1 channel reported that day.
Prosecutors maintain that on the night of Nov. 29-30, 2013, Popov, in collusion with Volodymyr Sivkovych, former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Vitaliy Koryak, Kyiv police chief, and other top-ranked officials gave an order to clear the square in order to set up a Christmas tree.
“The investigation has enough evidence to prove that Koryak used these circumstances to authorize the violent breakup of protesters,” the General Prosecutor’s Office said in the Feb. 13 statement.
Prosecutors also said Yanukovych as well as Andriy Klyuev, the former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and Vitaliy Zakharchenko, are culpable for their involvement in the rally breakup, according to the indictment.
All of them fled to Russia in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Popov is confident he’ll be acquitted of all charges.
Popov’s defense counsel, Mykola Karnaukh, told the Kyiv Post that “one cannot make a person liable for ordering the construction of a Christmas tree. With these actions, Popov secured the right of persons to labor … which is equal to right to peaceful assembly.
“Moreover, he did not aim at aiding or abetting any crime. He is a conscientious and responsible man. He is not a criminal. It is insulting, that former officials pointed (the finger) at Popov and the new authorities still pursue this direction.”
Horbatiuk said it is difficult to prove the charges when the majority of the actual perpetrators have fled the country.
“Of course, for the sake of due consideration of a case and objectivity, it would be ideal to have all the accessories to the crime on the defendant’s bench. However, based on Popov’s actions themselves, and the consequences they led to, the court can decide whether the investigation’s charges are accurate and the evidence is sufficient to prove Popov’s guilt in aiding police to commit a crime,” he told the Kyiv Post.
Popov was issued two formal notices of suspicion in the last 16 months: The first on Dec. 14, 2013, by ex-Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka; the second on Jan. 20, 2015 by Vitaliy Yarema who resigned as chief prosecutor on Feb. 10, 2015.
Pshonka accused Sivkovych and Popov of abetting Kyiv police chief Koryak in using force against the protesters. Allegedly, after conspiring in Sivkovych’s office, they called Koryak and hatched the plan, according to Karnaukh.
The Jan. 20 notice of suspicion extended the scope of charges to “illegally impinging on peaceful assembly rights,” he adds.
While Karnaukh believes it violates the double jeopardy rule, when a person cannot be tried for the same crime, Horbatiuk adjusted the existing notice of suspicion.
On Feb. 7, 2014, Kyiv’s Pechersk district court granted amnesty to Popov, Sivkovych and others under a law that parliament, loyal to Yanukovych, had passed on Jan. 16, 2014. The amnesty law was a part of a legislative package that instituted archaic measures designed to stifle the massive EuroMaidan rally.
Horbatiuk believes prosecutors under Pshonka started their investigation of Popov on Dec. 1, 2013 under growing public resentment.
“The government probably decided to bring several people to criminal responsibility to defuse tension. When that goal was achieved, it surreptitiously granted amnesty to those engaged,” he said.
When asked why it took 16 months to investigate the case, Horbatiuk said the prosecution quashed the amnesty granted to Popov in an appellate court only on July 30, 2014, while other cases are still pending in court.
“Since the former authorities didn’t truly intend to investigate the case, a real investigation commenced only in August 2014 and took six months,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Mariana Antonovych can be reached at [email protected].
