Friends of murdered whistleblower Kateryna Gandziuk have lambasted the softening of charges in her case as unlawful and unjustified.
Gandziuk, a municipal official in the city of Kherson, died in a Kyiv hospital on Nov. 4 from injuries suffered during an acid attack on July 31 of last year.
On April 24, the Prosecutor General’s Office stated that it had changed the charges against five suspects from murder, which is punishable by between 10 years and life imprisonment, to causing serious injuries that led to the victim’s death, which is punishable by between seven and 10 years in prison. On April 25, the prosecutor’s office said it had also changed the charges against the murder’s suspected organizer, Vladyslav Manger, to causing serious injuries as well.
Gandziuk’s lawyer, Yevgenia Zakrevska, said she could not comment because investigative information is confidential.
“Who Killed Katya Gandziuk,” a Facebook group set up by Gandziuk’s friends, said on April 25 that the acid attack against Gandziuk was a murder, not an attempt to inflict heavy injuries.
“Manger knew and knows what an acid is and wanted Katya not just to die but to suffer during her death,” the group said. “It more likely causes death than a gunshot to the chest.”
The activists also held a protest in front of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko’s house on April 25.
Roman Sinitsyn, a member of the group, told the Kyiv Post that the reduction of changes was “nonsense” and contradicted international legal practice. He argued that this could be an attempt to let the key organizers escape punishment.
The Prosecutor General’s Office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the accusations.
Lawyer Vitaly Tytych told the Kyiv Post that, according to legal practice, the criminals’ intent is determined not by investigators’ guesses about their thoughts but by the consequences of the crime. In Gandziuk’s case, that was death, and the crime should be qualified as murder, he argued.
The Prosecutor General’s Office said on April 24 that the suspects in the Gandziuk case had pled guilty and testified about their participation in the crime and the participation of other suspects. The charges against them were then reduced.
The six suspects who face reduced charges are Manger, the speaker of Kherson Oblast’s legislature and a former member of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party, Serhiy Torbin, Mykyta Grabchuk, Volodymyr Vasyanovych, Vyacheslav Vyshnevsky and Viktor Gorbunov. Except for Manger, they are all former war veterans from Dmytro Yarosh’s Ukrainian Volunteer Army, an offshoot of the Right Sector ultra-nationalist group.
Oleksiy Levin (formerly known by the surname Moskalenko) and Igor Pavlovsky – an aide to Mykola Palamarchuk, a lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc – have also been charged with ordering Gandziuk’s murder. They deny the charges.
Gandziuk’s father Viktor and the “Who Killed Katya Gandziuk?” group on Facebook have said that ex-Kherson Oblast Governor Andriy Gordeyev and his ex-deputy Yevhen Ryshchuk were involved in the murder. Both have denied the accusations.
Ryshchuk told his alleged accomplice Levin to “punish” Gandziuk – for example, to throw feces at her – and said that he was ready to pay for it, Levin said in a video released by the Slidstvo.info investigative show.
Meanwhile, Hordeyev tried to influence the investigation into Gandziuk’s murder, Slidstvo.info reported.
Ryshchuk and Gordeyev deny the accusations.
