A local court in Kyiv on Nov. 12 released Serhiy Vlasenko on bail but will allow the lawyer and former member of parliament to travel freely to Kharkiv, where his imprisoned client, former ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is being held.
Vlasenko
was asked by court to pay Hr 22,940 bail and required him to show up in the
prosecutor’s office twice weekly to give testimony in a criminal case initiated
by his former wife, Natalya Okunska, who accuses him of violence that caused
damage to her health in 2008. He was also banned from traveling abroad for two
months and has to hand his traveling passport to the investigator of his case
in the general prosecutor’s office.
If found
guilty of assaulting his ex-wife, Vlasenko could end up in jail for up to two
years.
Vlasenko,
however, insists that his case is a new round of persecution against the
political opposition, and fears that the prosecutors made their first attempt
to limit his travel to Kharkiv, where Tymoshenko is serving her seven-year
sentence, to defend her.
“It’s all
fake,” he said of the case. “Political repressions in the name of (President Viktor)
Yanukovych continue. “The materials of the case on the events of 2008 contain the results of tests dated 2013 describing a cruel beating. It’s a fake – I’m stressing this once again. I’m stressing this once again – I am a decent man, I don’t beat women.”
Vlasenko’s
alleged beatings of his wife are being investigated by the general prosecutor’s
department for grave crimes, according to Oleksandr Plakhotniuk, his lawyer.
Dmytro Borzykh, the prosecutor who came to court on Nov. 12, said that
Vlasenko’s special status as member of parliament in 2008, when the beatings allegedly
took place, makes it important enough for the general prosecutor’s office to
get involved. “We are obliged to investigate it,” he says.
Vlasenko
was stripped off his parliament member’s mandate earlier this year, and lost
immunity from prosecution that gave him the “special” status.
His lawyer,
Oleksandr Plakhotniuk, said that typically domestic abuse is prerogative of
district police departments to investigate. He said there was not a single
other case in the same category that is being handled by the top prosecutor’s
office, which proves the political character of the case.
Borzykh,
however, denied any political component in the case, saying the accusation is
“absurd.”
But
Vlasenko said other elements of the case are absurd. For example, the medical
expertise of Okunska’s alleged wounds left by Vlasenko’s attacks, was conducted
in the early 2013, or about five years after the beatings took place.
Moreover,
Plakhotniuk, Vlasenko’s lawyer, said that in their original appeal to court, prosecutors
demanded bail of Hr 1 million from Vlasenko, which is typically reserved for
grave crimes, the list of which is clearly defined by the criminal code. That
request was later changed once the prosecutors realized that domestic violence
is not on that list. Borzykh, the prosecutor, did not comment on the mistake.
Vlasenko
and Okunska, whose marriage lasted about two years, had a very messy and public
divorce in 2008, marred by mutual accusations and fights in courts. They are
still fighting for joint property and often vent their feelings through
frequent public appearances and in social networks.
On Nov. 11,
when Vlasenko was called into the general prosecutor’s office for questioning
in the same case, Okunska updated her Facebook page with a 2011 video of her
daughter Maria, who talks about an alleged case of Vlasenko;s beating of
Okunska. “This is an extreme measure of defense, but we were left no choice,”
Okunska wrote on her page.
Vlasenko,
however, insists that Okunska’s claims are being used by the authorities for
politically motivated prosecution. He also says that there is another case
currently being investigated by the Security Service of Ukraine, which might
accuse him of espionage in favor of Russia.
“Of course,
some people can say I was lucky today because I wasn’t arrested. But today I am
not arrested, and tomorrow I might be. Tomorrow they might say I am a Russian
spy,” Vlasenko said.
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya
Gorchinskaya can be reached at katya.gorchinskaya@gmail.com
