Oleksandr Burtsev, an activist charged with illegally bringing ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili over the Ukrainian border on Sept. 10, lapsed into a coma late on Sept. 25 during a court hearing after jailers and judges refused to give him insulin, Burtsev’s lawyer Valeria Kolomiyets told the Kyiv Post on Sept. 26.
Lviv Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by Burtsev, a Ukrainian veteran of Russia’s war against Ukraine, against his arrest. Burtsev was taken to a hospital and resuscitated there, Kolomiyets said.
Burtsev, a diabetic, was previously regularly given insulin at the detention center, officials did not give him the medicine on Sept. 25, Kolomiyets said.
During the court hearing, the defense asked the judge to test Burtsev’s blood for sugar or allow them to give him insulin, but the judges rejected the requests, according to Kolomiyets. Video footage of the hearing shows Burtsev lying on the ground.
Saakashvili’s lawyer Markiyan Halabala said on Facebook that he believed, by refusing to give Burtsev insulin, the judges had committed the crime of negligence.
Lviv Court of Appeals declined to comment, while Myroslav Demkiv, a spokesman for the State Penitentiary Service’s Lviv Oblast branch, told the Kyiv Post the service was checking the claim that Burtsev had not been given insulin on Sept. 25.
Demkiv confirmed that Burtsev was a diabetic and had been given insulin regularly before.
The hospital confirmed to the Kyiv Post that Burtsev had been taken to the emergency room but could not comment on his condition, citing confidentiality laws.
Burtsev is also accused of assaulting a border guard and disturbing the peace. Kolomiyets said that one of the border guards had accused Burtsev of causing a bruise on his leg, but argued that no evidence for this had been provided.
Burtsev has been arrested for two months without the right of bail, while another Saakashvili supporter, Vasyl Kats, was arrested and then released on bail earlier in September. Kolomiyets said Burtsev’s arrest without the right of bail was an exceptionally harsh measure that is usually not applied in similar cases.
Saakashvili attributed the Burtsev case to a conflict between Burtsev, an ex-member of the Shakhtarsk volunteer battalion, and Vyacheslav Abroskin, first deputy head of the National Police. Abroskin did not respond to a request for comment.
“These officials are using orders from Kyiv to get rid of their opponents,” Saakashvili wrote on Facebook.
Abroskin has been accused of links to Russian occupation authorities in Crimea. According to an alleged Security Service of Ukraine document published in March by Anton Shevtsov, an ex-police chief and a suspect in a treason case, Shevstov has received intelligence information from Abroskin in the interests of Russian-backed Crimean separatist Sergei Aksyonov — charges that Abroskin denies.
Meanwhile, in March the head of the Lviv detention center, where Burtsev is being held, was arrested on charges of taking a Hr 54,000 bribe.
As of now, five Saakashvili supporters have been charged in criminal cases linked to the border crossing, and the number is likely to increase, Kolomiyets said. Saakashvili sees the cases as a political vendetta by President Petro Poroshenko.
Another pro-Saakashvili activist, Maksym Ivanishchev, said on Sept. 26 that the apartment of his mother had been searched by law enforcers, attributing this to his personal conflict with Zaporizhchia Oblast Governor Kostyantyn Bryl.
Kolomiyets said that eight more pro-Saakashvili activists had been illegally detained by the police all over Ukraine and are currently witnesses in criminal cases. The police could not comment on the accusations.
Saakashvili also said on Sept. 26 that the authorities were planning to strip two of his allies – ex-Deputy Prosecutor General David Sakvarelidze and Vladimir Fedorin, a co-founder of the Kakha Bendukidze free-market think-tank – of their Ukrainian citizenship. Saakashvili ally Sasha Borovik was stripped of citizenship in April, while another Saakashvili associate, National Anti-Corruption Bureau Deputy Chief Gizo Uglava, faces criminal prosecution and may also be stripped of citizenship, according to lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko.
Saakashvili was stripped of citizenship by Poroshenko in July in what he sees as a measure that violates the Constitution, Ukrainian and international law and due process. He broke through the border on Sept. 10 and then launched a tour around Ukraine, rallying supporters.
Ukrainian authorities have so far refused to give Saakashvili documents specifying the grounds for his loss of citizenship.
Yuriy Bilous, a judge of Lviv Oblast’s Mostyska District Court, on Sept. 22 sentenced Saakashvili to a Hr 3,400 fine on charges of illegally crossing the border.
The court hearing was preceded by the release of an audio recording by Russian prankster Vladimir Kuznetsov in which he allegedly speaks with Judge Bilous, who was hearing the Saakashvili case. Kuznetsov pretended to be lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky, a top ally of Poroshenko widely believed to be in charge of the legal system. The person alleged to be Bilous expressed readiness to cooperate with Hranovsky in the Saakashvili case.
Bilous denied having spoken to Kuznetsov.
Kuznetsov also released a conversation with a person he alleges to be Iryna Volosko, chairwoman of Lviv’s Halytsky Court, which is hearing a criminal case against Saakashvili’s ally David Sakvarelidze. The person alleged to be Volosko said she was ready to take orders from Hranovsky.
