Kyiv's Court of Appeals has overturned the ruling to arrest former President Viktor Yanukovych in absentia in the Maidan case investigating mass killings of civilians on February 18-20, 2014.
The relevant decision was made by a panel of judges of the capital's Court of Appeals who considered the motion submitted by Yanukovych's lawyers to reconsider the ruling passed by Kyiv's Pechersky district court of May 12, 2020, in absentia under which the former president was to be taken into custody, an UNIAN correspondent reports.
Read alsoCourt refuses to choose measure of restraint for Yanukovych in Mezhyhirya case"To cancel the ruling of the Pechersky district court of May 12, 2020, which granted the application of a preventive measure against Yanukovych in the form of detention within the period of a pretrial probe until July 10, 2020, without the right to bail," according to the Court of Appeals' ruling.
The Court of Appeals also ordered the court of first instance to reconsider the investigator's motion to select a preventive measure against Yanukovych in the form of detention.
Yanukovych's arrest: Background
- On May 12, Kyiv's Pechersky district court satisfied the Ukrainian prosecutors' motion to arrest Yanukovych without the right to bail.
- Yanukovych is suspected of organizing persecution and murder of participants in mass protests in Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine on February 18-20, 2014, by means of abuse of power.
- On January 24, 2019, Kyiv's Obolonsky district court considered Yanukovych's case in absentia and found him guilty of high treason and complicity in the conduct of an aggressive war. The former president was sentenced to 13 years in prison. At the same time, the court did not recognize the proven guilt of the ex-president in infringement of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
- Yanukovych did not attend hearings. He fled Ukraine for Russia in February 2014.
- On May 4, 2020, Kyiv's Pechersky district court selected a preventive measure against Yanukovych in the form of detention as a suspect in criminal proceedings dated November 7, 2017 on the fact of the seizure of state power (Part 1 of Article 109 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
