KIEV, April 24 (RAPSI) – The police have detained three people suspected of involvement in the abduction of Euromaidan protestors Ihor Lutsenko and Yuriy Verbytskyi and the murder of the latter in January 2014, UNUIAN news agency announced on Wednesday citing Vasyl Paskal, head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s Criminal Investigations Department.

Paskal said they have evidence that 13 people were involved in the abduction.

Lutsenko drove Verbytskyi, who was injured in clashes with police in central Kiev, to the Zhovtneva Hospital from which they were kidnapped. Lutsenko was released later in the day, beaten but alive. He said he did not know what happened to Verbytskyi because the kidnappers held them separately. Verbytskyi was later found dead in Boryspil, a suburb of Kyiv.

Ihor Lutsenko is a civil activist and a co-founder of the Save Old Kyiv campaign.

The political crisis erupted in Ukraine in late November 2013 after the government announced that it had halted the country’s association with the EU. Mass protests, called Euromaidan, swept across the country and led to violent clashes between armed radicals and law enforcers in January and February 2014.

On February 22, radicals seized power in violation of the February 21 agreement on the settlement of the crisis, signed by Ukraine’s opposition leaders and President Viktor Yanukovych in the presence of the French, German and Polish foreign ministers. The Verkhovna Rada announced the deposition of Yanukovych, reinstated the 2004 constitution and set early presidential elections for May 25.

Moscow questions the legitimacy of the Verkhovna Rada decisions.