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Maidan events case hearing begins in Kiev

Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General has charged former President Viktor Yanukovich with treason and violating the country’s Constitution

© Valery Matytsin/TASS

KIEV, November 28. /TASS/. Kiev’s Svyatoshinsky District Court has begun the hearing of the Maidan events case, a videoconference with Russia’s Rostov Regional Court is planned so that Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovich could answer the court’s questions.

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Former Ukraine's president reveals his only mistake during Maidan crisis

The hearing was initially scheduled for Friday, November 25. However, it had to be postponed to Monday since it was impossible to bring to court the defendants, the Berkut special police unit officers, because some radical activists had blocked the pretrial detention center they are kept in. According to some Ukrainian media, today the defendants have been brought to court.

On Friday, Yanukovich said that the Ukrainian authorities had deliberately disrupted the court hearing as they were afraid that during an open hearing those truly responsible for the crimes committed during the clashes on Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in February 2014, would be named.

Ukraine’s former president also said it was impossible to investigate all the Maidan events without looking into the crimes against the law enforcement officers, committed during the winter of 2013-2014.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General charges Yanukovich with treason

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Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General Yuri Lutsenko has charged Yanukovich with treason and violating the country’s Constitution.

"You are suspected of treason, complicity with representatives of Russia’s authorities with the aim of changing Ukraine’s borders, violating Ukraine’s Constitution and unleashing an aggressive war," Lutsenko said during a technical pause in the court session.

Yanukovich is due to take part in the session of the Kiev court as a witness via a video link-up.

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