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Ukraine chief prosecutor suspects organizers of Rada’s clashes of creating criminal group

The clashes claimed the lives of three soldiers. In addition to that, 141 people, including 131 policemen and Ukraine’s National Guard members, were injured

KIEV, September 1 /TASS/. Ukraine’s prosecutors said on Tuesday that they saw signs of creation of a criminal organization in the actions of protesters who rallied outside Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on August 31, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office reported on Tuesday.

More than 3,000 opponents to Ukraine’s decentralization set up a picket in front of Verkhovna Rada (parliament) last Monday, August 31, at the time when the deputies were voting for the constitutional amendments designed to decentralize power in Ukraine and pave the way to a political and peaceful settlement to the Donbas conflict. The protesters clashed with the police. One demonstrator threw a combat grenade at the law enforcers.

"With all the information obtained by investigators by now, a terrorist act has taken place. I also believe there are signs of creation of a criminal organization (article 255 of Ukraine’s Penal Code), Ukraine’s Chief Prosecutor Viktor Shokhin said.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has accused Ukraine’s nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party and its leader Oleg Tyagnibok of this fresh outbreak of violence. The Svoboda party, in turn, has called the grenade incident a pre-planned provocation aimed against Ukrainian patriots.

The clashes claimed the lives of three soldiers. In addition to that, 141 people, including 131 policemen and Ukraine’s National Guard members, were injured.

Ukrainian prosecutors have initiated criminal proceedings on charges of murder or attempted homicide on the lives of law enforcers who perform their line of duty; a threat or an act of violence against a law enforcer; collective violation of public order and mass riots.