Donetsk, Jul 3 - DAN. The Ukrainian People’s Tribunal for investigating the Poroshenko regime’s war crimes against Ukrainian citizens (UPT) passed guilty sentences on two prominent Ukrainian business people and five prosecutors general in the cases tried in camera.
Of the ten convicts, two are mass media representatives, and one participated in illegal paramilitary formations.
The Tribunal’s key focus was on Igor Kolomoiskiy, a business tycoon and former chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk regional state administration, accused of abusing power, unleashing a military conflict, creating paramilitary formations in violation of the Ukrainian law, abetting banditry etc. Kolomoiskiy was charged on ten counts and sentenced to life imprisonment with property confiscation. It was the most severe sentence meted out by the UPT on July 2. The same punishment applies to prominent Poroshenko regime officials (see the Donetsk News Agency report on June 22).
Well-known Ukrainian oligarch Sergey Taruta, who headed the Donetsk regional state administration in 2014, was charged on four counts: concealing crimes, abuse of office powers, setting up illegal paramilitary formations, and provision of funding and supplies for them. He was sentenced to ten years in prison.
The “prosecutor” group included the Ukrainian prosecutors general from the winter of 2014 till the present time. The convicted persons are Oleg Makhnitskiy, Vitaliy Yarema, Viktor Shokin, Yuriy Sevruk and Yuriy Lutsenko.
Lutsenko, Yarema and Makhnitskiy were sentenced to ten years in prison, Shokin to eight years and Sevruk to six years for concealing crimes, abuse of power or office, criminal prosecutor of innocents, illegal detention, compulsion of evidence with violence, and violation of the right to defence.
Dmitriy Yarosh is the only suspect representing militant nationalistic formations. He was accused of complicity in carrying out acts of terror and sentenced to 12 years.
Chairman of Ukrainian's National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting and Novosti Donbassa (Donbass News) editor-in-chief Alexey Matsuka were charged with public calls for aggressive war and unleashing a military conflict. Artemenko, who was also accused of actions towards unleashing aggressive war and deliberate obstruction of journalists’ professional activity, was sentenced to seven years. Matsuka was sentenced to three years, the softest ever punishment meted out by the UPT.
The UPT summed up the results of its work earlier on Tuesday. It found 18 Poroshenko regime officials guilty of crimes against Ukrainian citizens.
The Tribunal held open hearings of eight cases (see the Donetsk News Agency report on June 22) against Ukrainian president Petr Poroshenko, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, National Security and Defence Council Secretary Alexander Turchinov, Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman, Chief of the General Staff Viktor Muzhenko, Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak, parliament speaker Andrey Parubiy and former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. They were sentenced to life imprisonment with property confiscation.
The UPT was set up by the professional Ukrainian lawyers living in Donetsk and Lugansk. In the course of the hearings which began in Donetsk in March 2018, the criminal case against Poroshenko and his associates was reviewed on the basis of Ukrainian legislation and in accordance with the norms of international law. The UPT’s rulings will be enforced by the Ukrainian judicial system and international courts. *jk