Council Of Europe Blasts Ukraine’s Investigations Into Odesa Violence
▻http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-odesa-fire-council-europe-report/27345601.html
The Council of Europe says the Ukrainian government’s investigations into violence that killed 48 people amid separatist tensions in the southern city of Odesa in May 2014 have fallen short of European standards.
Presenting its findings in Kyiv on November 4, the council said the official probes into last year’s street clashes and the deadly fire in Odesa’s Trade Union Building “failed to comply with the requirements of the European Human Rights Convention.”
Its report also concludes that substantial progress “has not been made” in investigating the violent events and the deficiency has undermined authorities’ ability to bring to justice those responsible.
[…]
However, the International Advisory Panel does fault the subsequent official investigations into the events for failing to fully establish what happened because “certain forensic examinations were not diligently carried out.”
It notes that the first forensic report on the fire was prepared in July 2014 without any on-site inspection of the Trade Union Building. Nine months later, the panel says, an interagency complex forensic examination was ordered in April 2015 and, at the end of August 2015, was still under way.
More generally, the panel says it considers the official investigations into the Odesa events “ineffective,” in part because of the authorities “failing to show sufficient thoroughness and diligence in initiating and pursuing” the inquiries.
The Council of Europe panel cites as “the most striking example of a lack of diligence” the fact that “the first real efforts to investigate an unexplained delay of over 40 minutes in the arrival of firefighters to the Trade Union Building were not made until December 2014.”