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Campaigners in Kiev’s center to leave administration building - mayor Klitschko

Kiev’s police has opened three criminal cases over the August 7 unrest in Independence Square

KIEV, August 09,  /ITAR-TASS/. Activists in the tent camp in Kiev’s Independence Square have agreed to leave the building of the city administration and vacate an area from the Central Department Store (TsUM) to Proreznaya Street, Kiev’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said on television Friday evening.

“We have persuaded the people inside the Kiev City Administration to leave,” Klitshcko said in the Shuster Live talk show. “It was no easy. But finally we managed to talk the people in the square to leave the area stretching from the Central Department Store to Proreznaya Street. We managed to do that and we keep talking to them and asking them to let us restore life in the city centre to normal,” Klitshcko said.

He acknowledged that the situation in the centre of the city was far from calm and remained a great problem for the authorities and the city dwellers.

“Security is the key question that worries Kiev’s people today,” Klitschko said.

Robberies and even attacks on journalists in Independence Square were frequent of late. The area is crammed with piles of stinking garbage and crawling with rats.

“Yesterday, to our deep regret and surprise, stones were thrown at utility workers. Tires were burned,” Klitschko said, adding he was certain that the negotiations with tent camp activists would take a constructive turn, which would allow for clearing the centre of Kiev and putting life there in order.

Kiev’s police has opened three criminal cases over the August 7 unrest in Independence Square.

“Criminal investigation is underway under three articles of Ukraine’s criminal code into car theft, illegal handling of firearms, ammunition and explosives, and hooliganism,” Kiev’s police chief Aleksandr Tereshchuk said Friday. According to the official, five people were taken to district police stations. Another two were given administrative punishment for petty hooliganism. Pre-trial investigation into the criminal cases is continuing.

Last Thursday, utility workers arrived in Independence Square in an attempt to remove the barricades on instructions from the city authorities. The demonstrators offered resistance. Clashes with police and utility workers followed. Fifty police and four utility workers were injured, police sources said. About ten trouble-makers were detained.