Shevchenkivsky Сourt in Kyiv on Dec. 22 issued a four-year suspended sentence to Yuriy Krysin, a leader of the group of paid thugs that attacked and killed journalist Vyacheslav Veremiy during the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014.
Veremiy, a journalist for Vesti newspaper in Kyiv, was killed in Kyiv on the night of Feb. 18, 2014 on his way home from work at the intersection of Volodymyrska and Velyka Zhytomyrska Streets in central Kyiv.
From his taxi, Veremiy saw a group of men armed with bats that were brought in to disrupt anti-government rallies, and started filming them on his phone. When the men saw it, they pulled him out of the taxi, beat him up with bats and shot him. The journalist died in hospital from his injuries.
Vyacheslav Veremiy, a journalist of Vesti newspaper, was killed by a group of men who were paid to disrupt anti-government EuroMaidan protests on Feb. 18, 2014. (Facebook)
Krysin was the leader of a group that attacked Veremiy but has denied that his actions caused the journalist’s death.
Krysin admitted that during the EuroMaidan protests he was given $20,000 to organize a group of thugs to disrupt rallies (known as “titushkas”). Oleksiy Donskoy, one of the prosecutors in Krysin’s case, told Hromadske Radio that Krysin bragged that he was able to bring in up to 3,000 paid thugs within just one hour when needed.
Still, Krysin wasn’t even standing trial for murder – his actions were qualified as “hooliganism.”
The prosecutor in the case, Lyudmyla Hetman, said to the UNIAN news agency that the prosecution didn’t have enough proof to charge Krysin with murder.
His four-year suspended sentence comes with a two-year probation term: He will only have to serve time in jail if he commits a crime within the next two years. He will also pay a court fee of Hr 12,284 ($440).
The prosecution asked the court to give Krysin six years in prison. The judge said that Krysin’s confession of guilt, as well as his two underage children, were considered as factors to soften the sentence. The prosecution will appeal the ruling and ask for six years for Krysin.
The public wasn’t allowed to the court hearing on Dec. 22 for safety reasons as Krysin claimed that he was being threatened.
Despite the fact that there was a group of at least three men attacking Veremiy, only the man who allegedly shot him is wanted for murder. It is Jalal Aliyev, a resident of Horlivka, whose whereabouts are unknown.
However, lawyer Yevheniya Zakrevska, who represents the families of the slain EuroMaidan protesters, said on Dec. 22 that videos prove that all three man acted consistently when they attacked Veremiy, arguing that all must be charged with murder.
A human rights activist Maria Tomak also pointed out an inconsistency in Krysin’s story: While he claimed that he stopped beating Veremiy after he was shot, Tomak said there were videos that show him beating the journalist afterward.
Moreover, Zakrevska said that the court ignored two earlier suspended sentences of Krysin, who was found guilty of nonintentional murder in 2010, and who is still on probation having been found guilty of illegal arms possession in 2016.
