As part of the probe into a criminal case over the shootings at participants of peaceful protests in downtown Kyiv in winter of 2014, a sniper, who served in the interior troops at the time, but who was dismissed from law enforcement agencies in 2016, was detained and arrested, chief of the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s General Office’s investigation department Serhiy Horbatiuk said.
The detainee is charged with committing the murder on Feb. 20, 2014, together with former Berkut special police force officers at the time, he said on the 112.Ukraine TV channel. At the moment of his detention the man has already not served in law enforcement agencies since 2016, Horbatiuk said.
He is being held at a remand prison. The court ruled to arrest him.
A total of 21 people, who are charged with committing murders, and six people, who are charged with plotting them, are wanted following the Feb. 20, 2014 riots, Horbatiuk said in response to a question about the search for other suspects in the shooting incident.
A source with knowledge of the progress of the probe earlier told Interfax-Ukraine that the abovementioned sniper was detained and arrested. The suspect is a sniper of the Omega special force, and he was fired from law enforcement agencies in 2015, according to the informed source of the news agency.
Not a single active-duty sniper of the Ukrainian National Guard (NGU) was detained on suspicion of the shootings at EuroMaidan activists, according to the Ukrainian National Guard.
“The National Guard of Ukraine has checked the information published in mass media regarding the arrest of a supposedly current NGU sniper who reportedly fired his TS.M308 sniper rifle fitted with an optical gun-sight at a Euromaidan activist, the stage director Oleksandr Khrapachenko,” the NGU said on its Facebook page.
The internal inquiry showed that by 4.30 p.m. on Nov. 15 none of the active-duty NGU snipers was arrested by law enforcement agencies, the NGU said.
