Supreme Court overturns acquittal of ex-Berkut officer charged with torturing Maidan protesters

KYIV. Jan 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Supreme Court of Ukraine ruled to overturn the acquittal of a former employee of the Berkut riot police charged with torturing participants of the Revolution of Dignity on the Independence Square (Maidan) in Kyiv in 2014, the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) has said.

Upon appeal by prosecutors of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Supreme Court ruled to overturn the ruling of Kyiv Court of Appeals to confirm a first instance court’s acquittal of a former employee of the Berkut riot police in Kharkiv region, it said on the Telegram channel on Friday.

The former Berkut officer was charged with torturing protesters in Kyiv under Part 2 of Article 127 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

According to the investigation, on January 20, 2014, the defendant along with other law enforcers tortured two protesters, one of whom was a minor. The victims were beaten by hands and legs. They were thrown down from the colonnade of the Dynamo Stadium at Hrushevskoho Street. After that they forced the minor to take off his clothes, stabbed him in his hip, sprayed the wound with pepper liquid, and forced him to walk by the line of law enforcers naked and barefoot at an air temperature of 12 degrees below zero, singing the national anthem of Ukraine. They also mocked his ideological beliefs.

The PGO recalled that in 2019 the first instance court ruled to acquit the ex-Berkut officer due to the lack of evidence that he personally committed the crime, and the Court of Appeals backed this decision.

The Supreme Court overturned the ruling of the Court of Appeals and sent the criminal case for new consideration by a court of appeals.