Escaped President Viktor Yanukovych is ready to participate in the consideration of the cassation appeal against the decisions of Obolonsky District Court of Kyiv and Kyiv Court of Appeal on the case of the loss of Crimea, which is being considered in the Supreme Court of Ukraine, lawyer Vitaliy Serdiuk, representing the interests of the former president, said.
According to the press service of Aver Lex, in which Serdiuk works, Yanukovych even appealed to the Supreme Court with a demand to ensure his personal participation by videoconference in the process of considering this appeal.
According to Serdiuk, Yanukovych’s personal participation in the trial will allow it “to be considered legal, impartial and not violating a person’s right to defense.”
“Many times Viktor Yanukovych appealed to the courts of Ukraine with demands to ensure his personal participation in court hearings, as Sviatoshynsky District Court did in the Berkut case in 2016. However, there were always reasons for refusals. In the case of the loss of Crimea, both the judges of Obolonsky District Court and the judges of Kyiv Court of Appeal, under pressure from the authorities, did everything to remove from suspicion those who were really guilty of the tragedy on the Maidan and the surrender of Crimea, Petro Poroshenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Oleksandr Turchynov and others persons who came to power as a result of the tragic events of 2014. The participation of Viktor Yanukovych in these trials destroyed this criminal strategy,” the lawyer said.
He also appealed to President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky with a demand to ensure the independence of the judicial process in the Supreme Court, and also called on the Ukrainian authorities to make the Supreme Court session “open and fair.”
“And, first of all, the word should be given to the fourth president of Ukraine. Only then this process can be considered legal, impartial and not violating the person’s right to defense, guaranteed both by the Constitution of Ukraine and the international conventions ratified by it,” the message said.
