Decision to break up Euromaidan overnight into Nov 30, 2013 belonged to Yanukovych - Ukrainian prosecutors
KYIV. Nov 17 (Interfax) - Investigators have established that Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych personally made a decision to break up the Euromaidan protest in Kyiv overnight into November 30, 2013, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has said.
"The investigation has established that the decision to break up the Maidan [student protest in Maidan on November 30, 2013] and do so by force was made immediately by the country's then-president," Serhiy Horbatyuk, head of the Prosecutor General's Office specialized investigations department, told a press briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.
It was also established that "an instruction to put this plan into practice was issued to Ukraine's former Interior Minister [Vitaly Zakharchenko] and [former] National Security and Defense Council [NSDC] Secretary Andriy Klyuyev," he added.
These persons, for their part, gave their instructions to former NSDC Deputy Secretary Volodymyr Sivkovych, Kyiv's ex-police chief Valeriy Koryak and former head of the Kyiv city administration Oleksandr Popov, he said.
"Within the police service, it was the Berkut special operations unit of Kyiv police that was directly ordered to suppress the Maidan," Horbatyuk said.
There were no legal reasons to break up the rally, and a court ruling authorizing such a measure was also absent, he added.
"They cited allegedly the need to put up a New Year's Tree as an excuse, which they considered to be sufficient to commit such criminal actions. As a result of such criminal actions, more than 300 people were pushed from the square, and 84 people were beaten up, among them 17 students," Horbatyuk said.
Accusations were also brought against Ukraine's former leadership over the December 1, 2013 events on Kyiv's Bankova Street, where law enforcement personnel used violence against protesters and journalists, he said.
"As for the December 1 events, accusations were brought up against former President of Ukraine Yanukovych, [former Interior Minister] Zakharchenko, his deputy [Serhiy] Ratushnyak, Kyiv's police and security chief [Petro] Fedchuk, as well as a Berkut commander from one of its territorial units who has already been arrested," Horbatyuk said.
Evidence is now being collected against several other Berkut units involved in those violent actions in order to subsequently charge their members, he said.
The most violent treatment of protesters on Kyiv's central Independence Square (Maidan) overnight into December 11, 2013 came from Berkut special operations units, who were sent to the square unofficially, Horbatyuk said.
"The majority of violent actions were committed by Berkut units who were not officially prosecuted [for this]," he said, referring to the events overnight into December 11, 2013, when law enforcement personnel sought to violently suppress a rally on Independence Square.
Accusations in connection with these events were also filed against Yanukovych, Zakharchenko, Ratushnyak and the commanders of Berkut units "whose soldiers used violence, and protesters suffered directly as a result of their actions," he said.
Investigators have also established that in the winter of 2013-2014, officers of Ukraine's Interior Ministry and State Traffic Police Inspectorate systematically beat and arrested 'AutoMaidan' activists, Horbatyuk said.
"It was a systemic professional duty of the traffic police department, the Interior Ministry, as well as individual judges being coordinated by the presidential [Yanukovych's] administration," he said.
Charges filed against 40 people, including 38 Interior Ministry employees and two judges, have already been forwarded to courts, he added.