Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office search people involved in assistance to Berkut officers

The officers of the Special Investigations Department at the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine searched the apartments of those involved in taking Berkut officers out of Kyiv and destroying of their weapons.

 Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko posted this on his Facebook page.

“Today, the officers of the Special Investigations Department at the Prosecutor General’s Office searched the apartments of those involved in taking Berkut officers out of Kyiv after bloody shootings on Maidan and subsequent destroying of their weapons. The elements of a sniper rifle and machine guns, which have been recently found in a pond, will become additional evidence at the trial,” he wrote.

February 2015, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine stated that the notices of suspicion had been served against 20 officer of the Berkut special riot police force under the articles of the Criminal Code on abuse of office leading to serious consequences, commission of murders and attempted murders of several people by prior agreement in a way dangerous to the lives of many people and the loss of service weapons.

Currently, the court considers the case against former Berkut officers Pavlo Abroskin, Serhiy Zinchenko, Oleksandr Marynchenko, Serhiy Tamtura and Oleh Yanishevsky. They are accused of shooting Maidan activists in Kyiv in February 2014.

In September 2014, former Berkut company commander Dmytro Sadovnyk, who is also suspected of killing 39 Maidan activists, escaped from house arrest and was declared wanted.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, 2,500 people were injured, 104 of them were killed, during the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in 2013-2014.