KIEV, February 26 (RAPSI) – The main investigative department of Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an official investigation into the murders during the mass protest action in November 2013 – February 2014, according to the statement posted on the office’s website on Wednesday.
According to the statement, ousted president Viktor Yanukovich, former head of the presidential administration Andrei Kluev, former head of the Interior Ministry Vitaly Zakharchenko, former head of Security Service Aleksandr Yakimenko, former commander of the interior troops Stanislav Shulyak and other unnamed officials are currently deemed as suspects in the investigation.
A search was conducted in the Presidential Administration’s offices, National Security Council, National Bank and Yanukovich’s former residence in Mezhigorye.
President Viktor Yanukovich, who was ousted by Ukraine’s Supreme Rada (parliament), was placed on a wanted list Tuesday.
Unrest in Kiev erupted this month anew as thousands of people marched on the parliament building, where a standoff was taking place over proposed constitutional reforms that the opposition said could provide a way out of the political crisis that is paralyzing the country. The violence that ensued resulted in numerous deaths and hundreds of injuries.
Fighting between radical anti-government protesters and police has claimed 82 lives since the violence escalated on February 18, according to the Ukrainian Health Ministry. Yanukovich, who fled the capital, had earlier called the move a coup and compared it to the rise of the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s.