ODESSA, July 13. /TASS/. Euromaidan activists staged disturbances in an Odessa court examining the case of their associate Sergey Khodiyak accused of killings during the May 2 massacre last year, the local publication Timer reported on Monday.
About a hundred of Euromaidan activists came to support Khodiyak. They were insulting the relatives of the massacre’s victims, spitting at them and demanding that "they get away to Russia."
They are claiming the "defendant is not a criminal but a hero who should be awarded for shooting at activists of the Kulikovo field [the anti-Maidain gathering]," the Timer said.
The court’s session was adjourned again until July 23 as judge Svetlana Nikitina quit the board examining the case.
The court’s previous sessions were delayed for the same reason as well and the court has been unable to examine the case for the fourth consecutive month.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office reported in April 2015 that during last year’s riots in Odessa Khodiyak "armed himself with fire arms and a hunting rifle with ammunition and made several targeted shots at a group of people. As a result, he killed one person and wounded a law-enforcer."
Despite this, the Euromaidan activist accused of killing a person has not even been detained.
A state prosecutor told the court he saw no reason for keeping Khodiyak in custody. However, the same state prosecutor earlier demanded that anti-Maidan activists should be imprisoned, following which they had been kept in custody for more than a year now.
Gunmen from the radical Right Sector organization and the so-called Maidan self-defenсe units who came to Odessa on May 2, 2014, burnt out a tent camp set up by Odessa residents for gathering signatures in support of a referendum on Ukraine’s federalization.
After that, they set fire to the Trade Union House where anti-Maidain activists were hiding. This massacre claimed 48 lives while over 200 people were injured.
Overall, 21 people have been put on trial in the May 2 case, of whom 10 are being held in custody. All of the persons against whom criminal charges were brought are anti-Maidan activists only.