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Kiev court rules to release former Berkut riot police officers on own recognizance

Meanwhile, nationalists continue to gather outside the court and detention facility to prevent taking the officers to eastern Ukraine, where they are to be swapped

Riot police take cover behind shields as anti-government protesters throw stones at them in central Kiev in Februrary 2014 ITAR-TASS/ Nikita Yurenev

Riot police take cover behind shields as anti-government protesters throw stones at them in central Kiev in Februrary 2014

© ITAR-TASS/ Nikita Yurenev

KIEV, December 29. /TASS/. The Kiev Court of Appeal ruled to release on personal recognizance former officers of the Berkut riot police unit, charged with a violent crackdown on protestors on Kiev’s Maidan Square in early 2014.

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"The court resolved to change the measure of pretrial restraint from arrest to [release on] personal recognizance," the judge announced.

Nationalists, who were present in the court hall, started chanting "Shame!" when the decision was announced.

The court decision applies to Pavel Abroskin, Sergei Zinchenko and Oleg Yanishevsky, who are not being held in the Lukyanovsky pretrial detention facility in Kiev, and Alexander Marinchenko and Sergei Tamtura, who were held under house arrest.

Meanwhile, nationalists continue to gather outside the detention facility to prevent taking the former Berkut officers to eastern Ukraine, where they are to be swapped for individuals held by the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR and LPR).

Berkut case

It took the Kiev District Court two days to consider the appeal against extending custody, filed by Abroskin, Zinchenko and Yanishevsky. Together with Marinichenko and Tamtura, the three former officers of the Berkut riot police’s Kiev unit are accused of shooting at protesters during the violent crackdown on riots on Kiev’s Maidan Square in February 2014.

Marinichenko and Tamtura were released from custody and placed under house arrest on December 19 and in June 2019, respectively.

The cases of the five officers, accused of killing 48 protesters, were merged into a single case on February 16, 2016.

A group of unidentified people armed with sniper rifles opened fire at protesters and police as riots against then President Viktor Yanukovich and his government peaked in the heart of the Ukrainian capital on February 20, 2014. According to official reports, the attack left 53 people dead. The new Ukrainian government blamed the shooting on Berkut officers.

According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, over a hundred of people were killed and hundreds were injured in clashes in Kiev on February 18-20. In total, more than a thousand of police officers were injured between November 21, 2013 and February 20, 2014, according to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, but Ukrainian prosecutors have not been conducting an inquiry into those facts.

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