Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard
17:59:44
14/05/2017
timer-odessa.net
No official body of power in Ukraine passed a decision on the recognition of the unrecognized DPR and LPR as terrorist organizations.
The replies of official bodies to the requests sent by the prisoner Sergey Babich, who is in the pre-trial detention center of Artemovsk (it was renamed by the Verkhovna Rada to Bakhmut) according to Article 258-3 (participation in a terrorist organization) testify to this.
Babich appealed to the Administration of the President of Ukraine with a request to provide a list of normative-legal acts according to which the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics are recognized as terrorist organizations. Bankova [Street, the Rada – ed] replied: The Verkhovna Rada repeatedly urged international organizations to recognize the DPR and LPR as terrorist organizations, however no acts of the Verkhovna Rada, according to which these organizations are recognised as terrorist ones, in thePresidential Administration are known.
The Verkhovna Rada itself confirmed: parliament didn’t adopt any legislative acts determining the DPR and LPR as terrorist organizations.
And in the response of the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defence Pashinsky it is absolutely said that at the present moment the procedure of recognition of this or that organization as terrorist ones isn’t stated in the legislation: the relevant bill describing this procedure is only being considered by the Verkhovna Rada, but as of now it hasn’t been adopted. I.e., according to data of the committee, the Ukrainian authorities with all their desire couldn’t recognize DPR and LPR as terrorist organizations because for this purpose there is no legislative basis.
The Court of Appeal of the Donetsk region thinks differently: there they refer to Part 3 of Article 24 of the Law of Ukraine “About the fight against terrorism”, according to which a statement about the recognition of an organization as a terrorist one is filed in court by the Public prosecutor or regional prosecutors, i.e. in principle such a procedure exists. However, in the Court of Appeal of the Donetsk region hasn’t received such statements as of yet, and, accordingly, didn’t make decisions on them.
And this isn’t surprising, because after all the Prosecutor’s Office of the Donetsk region, according to their own words, didn’t send any such statements to the court. Donetsk “supervisors” [territory occupied by Kiev – ed] point at the Verkhovna Rada and Cabinet of Ministers
The Supreme Court also isn’t aware of any decisions of this kind.
In other words, as of now there aren’t any signs that the Ukrainian State officially recognized the DPR and LPR as terrorist organizations at the standard and legal level.
From where two interesting conclusions follow.
Firstly, it’s not completely clear on what basis Babich himself, his friends, and also other persons who were arrested on the charge of cooperating with the “terrorist organizations” DPR and LPR find themselves in the pre-trial detention center. After all, if these organizations aren’t recognized as terrorist ones, so there is no corpus delicti for Article 258-3 of the Criminal Code in the actions of these people.
And secondly, in this regard the attempts of the Ukrainian authorities to achieve the recognition of the DPR and LPR as terrorist organizations at the international level — in conditions when Ukraine itself as of now didn’t manage to recognize them as such, looks quite strange.
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