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Snowden’s lawyer to represent Donbass resident in Strasbourg court

In an interview with NTV television, Kucherena revealed he had received a letter from Tsemakh who asked him to be his lawyer
European Court of Human Rights EPA-EFE/PATRICK SEEGER
European Court of Human Rights
© EPA-EFE/PATRICK SEEGER

MOSCOW, November 6. /TASS/. Russian Defense Attorney Anatoly Kucherena is working on a complaint to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights against Ukraine and the Netherlands in connection with the violation of the rights of Vladimir Tsemakh, a resident of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), who was abducted by the Ukrainian intelligence services and illegally kept in custody.

In an interview with NTV television, Kucherena revealed he had received a letter from Tsemakh who asked him to be his lawyer.

"In his handwritten letter, he wrote how he was tortured, how he was beaten, how he was abducted in Snezhnoye, where he lives in the Donetsk People’s Republic, how he was transported to Kiev, … what injections were given to him," the lawyer said.

"I will try to do the best I can to provide him with qualified legal assistance so that he can somehow defend his rights," Kucherena went on to say. "What he says is, of course, bloodcurdling. Work is already in progress, I have already started working on the complaint… Next, I will do my best to make sure that the Strasbourg court accepts the complaint and considers, at least, those problems, which he encountered."

Tsemakh’s abduction

In June 2019, Ukrainian intelligence services abducted Vladimir Tsemakh, a resident of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and former DPR air defense militia commander. He was secretly taken to Kiev from across the line of engagement in Donbass. The DPR demanded that its citizen be returned and called on international human rights organizations to intervene. According to DPR head Denis Pushilin, Ukraine abducted Tsemakh with the intention of fabricating the circumstances of the 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash. He was among those released on September 7 in accordance with the deal reached by Russia and Ukraine to swap detainees.

Tsemakh who is currently in the DPR earlier told Rossiya 24 TV that he was exploring the possibility of applying to international courts due to the violation of his rights. He also spoke about the dire conditions in the Ukrainian prison. According to the DPR citizen, doctors were not allowed to visit him, and he was interrogated without any lawyers.

What’s more, along with Ukrainian Security Service officers, Dutch and Australian police took part in the interrogations. They tried to exert psychological pressure on him in order to obtain "the evidence they needed" of the DPR militia’s and Russia’s involvement in the crash of the Malaysian passenger plane in the skies over Donbass in 2014.