MOSCOW, July 6 (RAPSI) – Former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, who stands charged with treason in his country, filed a motion over alleged coup with Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, his attorney Vitaly Serdyuk told journalists on Thursday.
The document lists names of people allegedly involved with events at Kiev's Maidan square and fighting between protestors, armed activists and law enforcement officers.
On July 5, Yanukovych told Russian journalists that he refuses to take part in the ongoing trial against him. According to Yanukovych, he does not want to participate in a trial with a predetermined outcome adding that “lawyers are powerless in a country of annihilated justice”.
In December, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko read charges against Yanukovych in a court through videoconference link. According to Lutsenko, Yanukovych, who was involved in violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, is held responsible for a 1.8-trillion-hryvnia (about $70 billion) damage caused to the country.
Shortly after, the Pechersky District Court in Kiev issued an arrest warrant for Yanukovych in absentia.
The Ukrainian prosecutors accuse the former president of using fire arms against protesters in Kiev in late 2013 and early 2014.
The political crisis erupted in Ukraine in late November 2013 after the government announced that it had halted the country’s association with the European Union. Protests, called Euromaidan, swept across the country and led to violent clashes between armed activists and law enforcement officers in late 2013 and early 2014.
Fighting between radical anti-government protesters and police culminated in mass riots on February 18, 2014. On February 20, fire was opened on protestors. Over 100 people died those days on both sides, according to RIA Novosti.
Ukraine's authorities claim "Berkut" officers to be blamed for the shootings.
Russia says that militants of Right Sector, a far-right Ukrainian group banned in Russia, may have been behind the attack.
Yanukovych said he did not give order to law enforcers to use fire arms against protesters when testifying about the events in Kiev.
Ukraine went through a regime change on February 22, 2014, when President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country and Euromaidan activists rose to power in Kiev.
In early 2015, it was reported that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office addressed Russia with a request to extradite the former president.
On June 6, 2016, Russia declined to extradite Yanukovych, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office’s spokesman Alexander Kurennoy.
A motion for provisional arrest and detention of Yanukovych filed by Ukraine was considered and dismissed in accordance with Article 3 (Political offences) of the 1957 European Convention on Extradition, he told journalists. Ukrainian authorities were informed about this decision, Kurennoy added.
