For millions of
Ukrainians, it was a crime against humanity. In February, more than 100
protesters were gunned down in the Maidan uprising that toppled the
president, Viktor Yanukovich. The victims are now known as “the Heavenly
Hundred.”
In April, prosecutors
arrested three suspects, members of an elite unit within the “Berkut”
riot police. Senior among them was Dmytro Sadovnyk, 38, a decorated
commander, who was accused of ordering his men to fire on the crowds on
the morning of Feb. 20. The three stand accused of massacring 39 unarmed
protesters.
On Sept. 19, the case took a turn when a judge released Sadovnyk into house arrest – and, two weeks later, he went missing.
Maidan
activists were outraged, convinced that a corrupt system had let a
killer escape. The judge was placed under investigation. The prosecutor
said in a statement: "D. Sadovnyk, suspected of committing an extremely
grievous crime, aiming to avoid punishment, disappeared from his place
of permanent residence."
But
in a country where justice often isn’t blind, there’s another
possibility: Sadovnyk was being framed, and saw flight as his best
option. In court last month, he called the case against him “a political
lynching.” In the days before he vanished, his wife and his lawyer say,
Sadovnyk and his family received death threats.
A
Reuters examination of Ukraine's probes into the Maidan shootings -
based on interviews with prosecutors, defence attorneys, protesters,
police officers and legal experts – has uncovered serious flaws in the
case against Sadovnyk and the other two Berkut officers.
Among
the evidence presented against Sadovnyk was a photograph. Prosecutors
say it shows him near Kiev’s Independence Square on Feb. 20, wearing a
mask and holding a rifle with two hands, his fingers clearly visible.
The
problem: Sadovnyk doesn’t have two hands. His right hand, his wife told
Reuters, was blown off by a grenade in a training accident six years
ago. As prosecutors introduced the image at a hearing in April, said
Yuliya Sadovnyk, her husband removed a glove and displayed his stump to
the courtroom.
“He can’t really shoot,” said Serhiy Vilkov, Sadovnyk’s lawyer. “To blame him for the crime is a political game.”
The
probes into the killings have been hindered by missing evidence. Many
guns allegedly used to shoot protesters have vanished; many of the
bullets fired were taken home as souvenirs. Barricades, bullet-pierced
trees and other items of forensic evidence were removed, lawyers say.
A
former Berkut commander told Reuters that Berkut officers destroyed
documentary evidence that potentially could identify fellow officers.
They did so, he said, because they feared the Berkut’s headquarters
would be attacked by a mob of revenge-seeking protesters after
Yanukovich fled to Russia.
The
former president isn’t the only key figure missing. In an interview
before Sadovnyk vanished, Ukraine’s general prosecutor, Vitaly Yarema,
said investigators had identified 17 Berkut officers as alleged
participants in the protester shootings, based on surveillance camera
videos and mobile-phone location data. Of the 17, he said, 14 had fled
to Russia or Crimea, including the Berkut’s top commander in Kiev.
Sadovnyk and his two co-defendants were the only identified suspects who
had remained behind.
MILESTONE
Independence
Square was the rallying point in Kiev where the anti-Yanukovich
revolution largely unfolded between November and February. (The word
Maidan means “square” in Ukrainian.) The killings there quickly were
recognised as a milestone in modern Ukrainian history, part of a chain
of events that set off a separatist conflict and Russian incursions that
have shaken the country to its core.
Videos
and photographs appear to show how Berkut officers shot at protesters
and beat them with sticks. In one video, the Berkut are seen making a
man stand naked in the snow.
The
public is demanding answers and justice. But the investigations are
testing Ukraine’s ability to rise above the kinds of failings that have
hobbled the country ever since its independence from the Soviet Union in
1991.
In contrast to,
say, Poland, Ukraine has never gelled into a robust state. Kiev has had
two revolutions since independence. A host of endemic problems -
political corruption, racketeering, a divide between speakers of
Ukrainian and Russian - have left it feeble and fractious. Another of
the state’s chief failings, outside observers say, is a broken justice
system.
Under Yanukovich
and his rivals before him, courts and cops were political instruments.
Yulia Tymoshenko, runner-up to Yanukovich in the 2010 presidential
election, later was jailed in a case widely criticised as political.
In
its 2013 report on human rights, the U.S. State Department cited the
Tymoshenko conviction in observing that Ukraine’s courts “remained
vulnerable to political pressure and corruption, were inefficient, and
lacked public confidence. In certain cases the outcome of trials
appeared to be predetermined.”
The
post-Yanukovich government acknowledged as much this July, in a report
it prepared with the International Monetary Fund. “The tax
administration, the police, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the State
Enforcement Service, and the judiciary were noted as having
traditionally been viewed as among the most corrupt public
institutions,” the report found.
The past shows signs of repeating itself.
The
two prosecutors and a government minister who have led the Maidan
shooting probes all played roles in supporting the uprising. One of
these officials told Reuters that the investigators gathering the
evidence are completely independent.
Another
gap in the prosecution: To date, no one has been apprehended in the
shooting of policemen. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior
Affairs, between Feb. 18 and 20, 189 police officers suffered gunshot
wounds. Thirteen died.
In
addition, the former acting general prosecutor who oversaw the arrests
of the three Berkut officers declared on television that they “have
already been shown to be guilty.” That statement, said legal experts,
could prejudice the cases. Ukraine is a party to the European Convention
on Human Rights, which states that criminal defendants are presumed
innocent until proven guilty.
“A
public statement by a prosecutor that directly challenges that
presumption is a denial of due process,” said Richard Harvey, a British
barrister who specialises in international criminal law.
Even
some of the bereaved families question the fairness of the proceedings.
Serhiy Bondarchuk, a physics teacher, died of a gunshot wound to the
back on the morning of Feb. 20. His son, Volodymyr Bondarchuk, said the
killing is one of the 39 in which Sadovnyk and his two colleagues are
suspected. Volodymyr said that based on his own inquiries, he doubts the
three were responsible for his father’s death.
“They
are trying to close the case because their bosses and the community
just want to have someone to punish,” he said. “The investigation does
not have enough evidence to prove the guilt of these three people.”
Volodymyr
Bondarchuk recently helped organise an association of about 70 families
of dead protesters. “The main aim for us,” he said, “is an objective
and accurate investigation.”
GOLDEN EAGLES
February
20 was the bloodiest day of the Maidan uprising. Scores of protesters
and police officers were shot and killed. A day later, opposition
leaders signed a European Union-mediated peace pact.
Public
pressure mounted to prosecute the perpetrators. Within a week,
Yanukovich, by then a fugitive, was indicted for the mass murder of
protesters. An interim government disbanded the Berkut, a force of
several thousand whose name means “golden eagle.”
On
April 3, Ukrainian authorities announced the arrests of several members
of an elite special unit within the Berkut. One was Sadovnyk, the
unit’s commander. A father of three, he first joined the Berkut in 1996
after serving in the Ukrainian army. He later won numerous commendations
for his police service.
Also detained were two younger officers: Serhiy Zinchenko, 23, and Pavel Abroskin, 24.
An
internal prosecution document, reviewed by Reuters, sketches out
investigators’ version of events. It is a “Notice of Suspicion” for
Zinchenko, dated April 3.
The
document alleges that on Feb. 18, the Berkut’s top commander, Serhiy
Kusiuk, gave an oral order to Sadovnyk to deliver automatic rifles to
his unit. Kusiuk is among the Berkut officers who fled to Russia,
prosecutors say. He couldn’t be reached for comment.
On
the morning of Feb. 20, several members of Sadovnyk’s unit were shot.
At around 9 a.m., the document alleges, Sadovnyk ordered his men to fire
in the direction of unarmed protesters walking up Instytutska Street in
downtown Kiev. The shooting lasted nearly two hours, and more than nine
protesters were killed, the document states.
Sadovnyk’s
order to shoot was an abuse of power, “given that there was no
immediate threat to the lives of the police officers,” the document
alleges.
Vilkov,
Sadovnyk’s lawyer, disputes that account. Although the document
indicates Sadovnyk was at the scene, Vilkov said his client was not on
Instytutska Street when the protesters were killed the morning of Feb.
20. Vilkov declined to discuss Sadovnyk’s whereabouts.
In
a telephone interview on Sept. 30, Sadovnyk told Reuters he was at a
meeting on the morning of Feb. 20 at Kiev police headquarters. It began
sometime between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., he said. The purpose, he said,
was to deal with reports that many armed protesters would be arriving in
Kiev after a call by protest leaders to mobilise.
Sadovnyk
said about seven police officials and officers were present, and he
named three of them. Reuters was unable to locate the three for comment.
At
the meeting, Sadovnyk said, the attendees heard gunshots and screams
over police radios. The radios carried reports of the death of a Berkut
officer and of other police wounded on Instytutska Street.
Sadovnyk
said at that point, he left and drove to the scene, taking about 15
minutes to get there. He said he does not remember what time he arrived,
but that investigators could figure it out by tracking his mobile
phone. He said he brought a gun and protective equipment.
When
he arrived, he said, he found a nearly empty scene, with police
officers running and the sound of ricocheting bullets. He said he
neither received nor gave any order for his unit’s members to shoot at
protesters, nor did he fire at anyone himself.
“I deny killing,” he said.
Vadim
Ostanin, an attorney for the Berkut’s Kiev branch, gave a similar
account to Reuters. He said there is a video showing that Sadovnyk
attended the meeting at police headquarters. Ostanin said that when
Sadovnyk arrived at the scene of the shooting, his unit’s men already
were retreating.
“GUILTY”
The
general prosecutor’s office declined to discuss the defence’s account.
In a statement, the office said it has plenty of evidence against
Sadovnyk. This includes videos of a protester being shot by a gunman.
The office believes the gunman is Sadovnyk, based on the “special way”
the shooter is holding the weapon. In a previous statement, the office
said: “The question of guilt or, conversely, innocence of mentioned
persons will be resolved by the court.”
Oleh
Makhnitsky was Ukraine’s acting general prosecutor until June. In an
interview, Reuters asked him about the purported photograph of a
two-handed Sadovnyk, which was cited at a hearing in April.
The
purpose of that hearing, Makhnitsky said, was not to judge the
reliability of the evidence but to determine whether Sadovnyk was a
flight risk. He said the evidence against Sadovnyk would be presented at
a future trial.
Makhnitsky,
now an adviser to President Petro Poroshenko, said he was a leader of a
lawyers’ group that provided legal assistance to anti-Yanukovich
protesters during the Maidan demonstrations. He said politics played no
role in the prosecution of the three Berkut officers.
“The investigators are in a separate unit that can’t even be influenced by the prosecutor,” he said.
On
May 30, Makhnitsky gave an interview on local television about the
arrests of the three officers. The suspects, he said, “have already been
shown to be guilty.”
Asked
about those comments by Reuters, Makhnitsky said he meant that “enough
evidence was gathered to prove they are guilty.” A court ultimately will
decide, he said.
The extent of the prosecution’s evidence against the three officers remains unclear. Court filings in the cases are not public.
Attorneys
for officers Zinchenko and Abroskin said that as far as they knew, much
of the evidence against their clients consists of videos that
prosecutors allege show the officers holding guns. The attorneys say the
men in the videos - wearing masks and helmets - are not their clients.
In
one video, “only the eyes and nose are seen, and that guy isn’t
shooting; he’s just turning around with a gun and looking around,” said
Stefan Reshko, an attorney for Abroskin. Reuters did not view the video.
Oleksandr
Poznyak, who represents Zinchenko, said the evidence against his client
includes a video of a masked man holding a gun. The attorney showed the
video to Reuters. The masked gunman, he said, is taller and has bigger
hands than Zinchenko, and is holding the gun in his left hand. While
Zinchenko writes with his left hand, the lawyer said he has photographs
showing that his client shoots with his right hand. Reuters didn't view
those pictures.
Defence
attorneys also plan to argue that the Berkut officers were entitled to
fire in self-defence: They were in danger, as demonstrated by the fact
that their colleagues were shot. Prosecutors argue that the 39
protesters the three are accused of killing on Feb. 20 were all unarmed.
The
prosecutors “represent the whole picture as a peaceful protest,”
Sadovnyk told a judge at a hearing on Sept. 5. But, he added, “On the
20th, early in the morning, as a result of the peaceful protest, nearly
17 representatives of law enforcement were killed.”
GRAPPLING HOOK & STEEL CLAW
To
bolster Sadovnyk’s point, several ex-Berkut officers who still serve on
Kiev’s police force agreed to meet a reporter and photographer. In a
small room at their old headquarters, they produced a selection of what
they said were weapons seized from demonstrators.
The
items included a grappling hook attached to a steel bar, wooden clubs
affixed to chains, and a steel claw made of four welded nails. The
ex-officers showed a burnt police shield with two bullet holes that they
said had been struck by a Molotov cocktail.
Alongside the weaponry were framed photos of two Berkut officers who they said were killed at the demonstrations.
“If
these officials were fair, they would catch not only policemen, but
also the activists from the other side,” said one ex-Berkut member.
On
Sept. 5, a tense crowd watched as a judge heard arguments over whether
Sadovnyk should be released into house arrest. The defendant observed
from inside a metal cage.
The
prosecutor, Oleksii Donskyi, called Sadovnyk’s claim that he was absent
during the shootings “a complete lie.” When the judge retired to
deliberate in chambers, an exasperated-looking Yuliya Sadovnyk marched
up to where the prosecutor sat and told him: “I’m waiting for your case
to collapse.” Donskyi declined to comment.
The
judge ordered that Sadovnyk be kept behind bars. Two weeks later, a
different judge gave him house arrest. The prosecution appealed. Last
Friday, Sadovnyk was called to a hearing to determine whether he should
be sent back to jail.
That’s
when he vanished. Yuliya Sadovnyk said he left their apartment at 7
a.m. last Friday, saying he felt ill. She hasn’t heard from him since,
she said.
In the days
before the hearing, attorney Vilkov says, the Sadovnyks, their three
children and the lawyer himself received death threats. Yuliya Sadovnyk
read to Reuters a sample of texts she received.
“Hey you, Berkut slut,” reads one. “Horrible death is waiting for you and your spawn. Glory to Ukraine!"
Abroskin and Zinchenko remain in jail. No trial date has been set. All three men face life imprisonment.
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