Ukraine Gives a Pass to Thugs - Bloomberg View
▻http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-06/ukraine-gives-a-pass-to-thugs
One of the most urgent demands made during Ukraine’s “revolution of dignity” last year was that the leading figures of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych’s regime be brought to justice for plunder. But so far almost all of them, including Yanukovych himself, have gotten off scot free, because the new government is not pursuing them. And now, frustrated at the lack of evidence gathered against the old leaders, the European Union is beginning to lift its sanctions on them.
The EU sanctioned Yanukovych and 21 of his allies a year ago, at the new government’s request. Today, it removed four of them from its sanctions list and gave Ukraine three months to come up with credible evidence against three others.
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The lack of charges against the other three now cleared by the EU is even harder to understand. They are Andriy Portnov, Yanukovych’s deputy head of staff responsible for reforming law enforcement; Igor Kalinin, Yanukovych’s security aide; and Oleksandr Yakymenko, who headed Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency. They are highly likely to have been involved in attempts to put down the rebellion in Kiev that eventually toppled Yanukovych. If Yakymenko was not involved in the February 2014 shooting of protesters and innocent bystanders, now known as the “Heavenly Hundred,” he did nothing to fulfill his direct responsibility to prevent it.
Those deaths have not been properly investigated. “I want to ask the current authorities why they haven’t finished an investigation into the deaths of the ’Heavenly Hundred,’” Yanukovych, now the owner of a mansion near Moscow, taunted in an interview with a Russian weekly late last year. “Are they scared to reveal the truth about what happened?”
Le seul à réclamer que l’enquête sur les morts de Maïdan l’année dernière avance, c’est l’ancien président Ianoukovytch. Les autorités ukrainiennes ne parvenant pas à fournir de preuves, les anciens responsables du maintien de l’ordre sont discrètement retirés de la liste des personnes sanctionnées par l’UE…
