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Yanukovich’s defense lawyers insist on extending pre-trial investigation till March 28

The decision to extend the investigation was geared to carry out a number of procedures, including to question former Security Service officers, according to the lawyer

Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovich Valery Matytsin/TASS

Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovich

© Valery Matytsin/TASS

KIEV, January 30. /TASS/. Defense lawyers of Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovich insist pre-trial investigation of the high treason case be extended till March 28, the press service of the Aver Lex law firm told TASS on Monday.

"The senior investigator of the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office must implement the ruling of Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoly Matios on prolonging the pre-trial investigation of the high treason case till March 28, 2017," the press service quoted Vitaly Serdyuk, the lawyer representing Yanukovich, as saying. Apart from that, Serdyuk reportedly said he will notify the investigator about a motion he had filed demanding this ruling be implemented.

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Yanukovich blasts ‘Maidan’ extremists for sparking war in eastern Ukraine

According to the lawyer, the decision to extend the investigation was geared to carry out a number of procedures, including to question former Security Service officers. However the investigator has ignored this ruling. Serdyuk said he has filed a complaint over the investigator’s inaction with Kiev’s Pechersky district court.

Earlier, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said Yanukovich had been summoned to the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office on January 30, the last day of a special pre-trial investigation when the defense team will get access to the case files. Ruslan Kravchenko, a prosecutor of the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office, said on Monday the special pre-trial investigation of Yanukovich’s high treason case is over.

During a court hearing of the case of the 2014 Maidan shootings on November 28, 2016, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko read out a notification of the opening a criminal case against Yanukovich on charges of high treason. The former president was at the moment in Russia’s southern city of Rostov-on-Don from where he answered questions in the videoconference regime. On January 20, 2017, Kiev’s district court issued permission to launch a pre-trial investigation. However lawyer Vitaly Serdyuk insists that the authorization was devoid of any grounds.

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