The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv has opened proceedings in a case of the participants of an organized criminal group suspected of committing a series of xenophobic crimes, in particular, anti-Semitic ones. This is reported by Jews of Eurasia website.
The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv has opened proceedings in a case of the participants of an organized criminal group suspected of committing a series of xenophobic crimes, in particular, anti-Semitic ones. This is reported by Jews of Eurasia website.
The investigation suggests that the perpetrators carried out over two dozen provocations in 2016-2017 to incite ethnic hatred in Ukraine and discredit the country in the foreign policy arena.
Dmytro Chernodubravsky and Serhiyi Bahchevan, a likely customer and one of the alleged perpetrators, respectively, were brought before the court. Two other alleged criminals, Borys Mushchenko and Bogdan Shevchenko, who were detained in the fall of 2017, fled house arrest during investigation and were declared wanted.
The National Police filed the case to court on August 2 this year. On October 18, the court extended the suspects’ term of detention as a preventive measure until December 15, 2018.
The investigation suggests that the perpetrators, in particular, desecrated the synagogue in Chernivtsi (November 19, 2016), defiled the grave of Rabbi Nahman in Uman (December 21, 2016), desecrated the memorial to the victims of the massacre of ethnic Poles and Jews in Guta Penyatska, Brody District of Lviv Oblast (January 9 and March 12, 2017), profaned the Polish section of the memorial to the victims of totalitarianism in the Bykivnya Graves Reserve (January 25, 2017), desecrated the Polish cemetery in the village of Pidkamyn, Brody district, Lviv Oblast (March 12, 2017), threw an explosive device near the Lithuanian embassy in Kyiv (April 24, 2017), blew a grenade at the office of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (May 20, 2017), launched an explosive device near the office of the National Corps party in Obolon District of Kyiv, Zoya Haidai Street (May 22, 2017), threw a grenade at the US Embassy (June 8, 2017), painted an anti-Semitic graffiti on several Jewish facilities and attempted to set fire to the synagogue in Lviv (June 30, 2017), threw an explosive device at the Polish Consulate in Lutsk (July 10, 2017), threw a grenade on Hrushevskoho Street in Kyiv (August 24, 2017), attempted to defile and to blow up a monument to a participant in the fighting on Les Kurbas Street in Kyiv (August 24, 2017), threw a grenade in Uman, injuring pilgrims (September 21, 2017), attempted to plant a bomb at the memorial on the Veretsky Pass, established in honor of the 1100th anniversary of the transition of the Hungarian tribes across the Carpathians; etc. In total there are 27 episodes in the case.
The maximum penalty for the crimes chargeable under the Criminal Code is a 15 year imprisonment.
Earlier, Vyacheslav Lykhachov, head of the Monitoring Group on the Rights of National Minorities, expressed doubts that all the crimes the members of the criminal group were charged with, were actually committed by them.