Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

01:35:09
05/08/2017

mk.ru

The trial of the former President could last forever…

On August 3rd in Kiev the latest hearing on the case of high treason of the former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych took place. In 2014 it could seem that this process can become critical nearly for all the post-Soviet space, but by the middle of the summer of 2017 interest in it disappeared, apparently, even by the participants of the court case themselves. Experts described what it is connected to.

The court session, which had to begin at 10am, was postponed approximately for half an hour because of problems with communication. However, the representative of the Ukrainian Themis worried in vain that the residents of the country and abroad won’t hear them on the air of Internet broadcasting. The peak attendance of broadcasting on YouTube was only 90 viewers. Near the courthouse there were neither onlookers nor journalists.

As is known, Yanukovych himself isn’t participating in the process because he refused to travel to Kiev for this, and the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office insisted that there won’t be a teleconference from Rostov-on-Don, where the former head of State likes to speak from. As the Ukrainian court doesn’t wish to listen to the former President, Yanukovych’s defence refused to participate in the process. As a result Kiev provided to the politician the State lawyer Vitaly Meshechek, who has no connection with the former president. In turn the accused on August 2nd submitted an appeal to the General Prosecutor’s Office about the initiation of legal proceedings against judges Vladislav Devyatko, Maksim Titov, and Konstantin Vasalatiy. According to Yanukovych, they want to adopt in-advance an obviously illegal decision.

As a remind, the politician doesn’t recognise any guilt for inviting the Russian army on the territory of Ukraine in 2014. According to him, he only wanted to stop the murder of civilians in Donbass, which he would speak about if he was allowed to broadcast from Rostov.

Meanwhile, on August 3rd Meshechek asked the court to give him additional time to become acquainted with the case and to send to his client an official summons. Both appeals were rejected. The judges decided that the lawyer will be able to understand materials during the course of the process, and also decided that the agenda is replaced by news in the government newspaper and on the website of the court.

The hearing came to the end on this, the next one was scheduled for August 10th. Then it was Yury Sergeyev, who in 2014 held the position of the permanent representative of Ukraine in the UN, who had to make a testimony.

Why the potential process of the century in which the culprits for the situation in Donbass must be revealed, turns out to be a headache that nobody needs, “MK” found out from experts:

Aleksandr GUSEV, head of the Center for Strategic Development of the CIS countries:

“Ukrainians understood long ago that between Yanukovych and the current President Petro Poroshenko, in fact, there is no difference. At first one stole, now another does. That’s why they isn’t any interest in the court case. Absolute nihilism gripped Ukrainians because of a deep economic crisis.

At the same time, the only thing that the Ukrainian authorities today can offer to justify their activity is a legal proceedings vis-a-vis the previous leadership under the slogan of Russian aggression. That’s why different courts proceedings on this subject will continue for a very long time. Thus, it is obvious for the whole world that Ukraine turned into a so-called ‘failed state’, which is in fact not a subject, but an object of international law.”

Rostislav ISHCHENKO, president of the Center for Systematic Analysis and Forecasting:

“The Ukrainian authorities are obliged to drag out this trial, they have to prove Yanukovych’s guilt at least in something. Otherwise, it turns out that they had no basis to overthrow him. And from this, in turn, it follows that all of them are criminals. While this trial has been ongoing, the guilt or innocence of Yanukovych hasn’t been proven, and it means that the Ukrainian authorities can feel safe. It can last until Yanukovych remains alive or all representatives of the ruling elite in Kiev die.”

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