Translated by Ollie Richardson

17:04:41
23/04/2017

strana.ua

On Friday the Shevchenkovsky regional court of Kiev pronounced the verdict in the resonant case of the attempted murder of Aleksandr Turchynov’s wife – the teacher of National Pedagogical Dragomanov University Anna Turchynova. The court found the Donetsk lawyer Vladimir Olentsevich guilty and sentenced him to 8.5 years of imprisonment.

In fact, in May of last year an elderly and myopic Olentsevich with a knife attacked a different employee of the Kiev university, having confused her for the wife of Turchynov. However, the investigation and court qualified it under a separate article – hostage taking.

Olentsevich was found guilty of attempting to take as a hostage the family member of the representative of authority (part 2 of Article 15, Article 349 of the Criminal Code) and taking a hostage (Art. 147 of the Criminal code).

According to the verdict, Olentsevich planned to take the wife of Turchynov hostage so that he cancelled the decree on the beginning of the anti-terrorist operation. Under the Criminal Code – influencing a government representative or law enforcement officer by capturing or holding their acquaintance or family member hostage is qualified according to Article 147. Thus, this article is also imputed to Olentsevich for taking the colleague Anna Turchynova hostage.

In court Olentsevich didn’t admit his guilt and during the trial he voiced political chants and criticism of the authorities in power. He regretted mixing-up the victim.

As a reminder, Olentsevich arrived in Kiev from Donetsk in the evening on May 25th, 2016.

The employee of the State protection of Ukraine who protected Anna Turchynova managed to stop the criminal actions of the attacker and detained the malefactor.

Earlier the director of the department of communication of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Artem Shevchenko described the details of the attack. According to his information, on May 25th the malefactor waited for the woman near her office. As the person was guided by a photo from the Internet where Anna Turchynova had short hair, because of bad lighting and short-sightedness the 62-year-old lawyer-avenger attacked a different teacher with similar hair.

Having grabbed her by her neck, he put a knife to her throat and addressed the teacher as Anna Turchynova, and advised her not to resist. The shocked woman explained that she is not the person the attacker thinks she is.

Having understood that he was mistaken, the malefactor tried to substitute the victim. Anna Turchynova, who stood nearby, started shouting. The security guard, taking advantage of the attacker’s confusion, took away his knife, having neutralized him.

Turchynov’s wife personally called the police, who arrived and detained the malefactor. During a search at Olentsevich’s place personal data on Anna Turchynova and a copy of the decree of the Acting president Aleksandr Turchynov on the beginning of anti-terrorist operation was found. The malefactor planned to leave the scene of the crime.

Earlier the lawyer Olentsevich made the headlines for the fact that he filed a claim with the demand to cancel the decrees on awarding Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych the title of Heroes of Ukraine, attempted to appeal in court against Yury Lutsenko’s pardon in 2013, and also filed a claim concerning the illegal discharge of Viktor Yanukovych from power, which was submitted to the acting president Aleksandr Turchynov.

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