As the court in Kiev puts police on trial for the Maidan slaughter, the big question is who ordered the killing.
By Anna Nemtsova
KIEV — Yevgenia Zakrevskaya, an attorney
here in the Ukrainian capital, is one of the strongest liberal voices in
the country, fighting hard for democratic values and the rule of law.
Persistent, punctilious, and stubborn, the 36-year-old Zakrevskaya has
pieced together a mosaic of evidence proving that the entire Ukraine
state system from top to bottom was responsible for the tragic events in
February 2014 when more than 100 protesters were killed in the streets
of Kiev.
Representing 20 victims and their family members, Zakrevskaya wants to send a strong message to Moscow and Washington, as well as to all Ukrainian officials: everyone complicit in ordering the mass murder of unarmed protesters in Maidan Square must be prosecuted and punished, even if it takes years—and even if the list of suspects comes to include people like former Donald Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort or, indeed, people protected by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Right now, Ukraine is watching the historic public trial of five former Kiev policemen. The men in the dock are members of “the Black Unit,” Kiev’s feared Berkut police, suspected of murdering 48 people and injuring up to 80 participants in the Maidan revolution on Feb. 20, 2014.
For three years Zakrevskaya has been collecting photo and video evidence, as well as physical evidence such as bullets and shells from around the square to prove not only that this police unit fired at the protesters but that they did so under orders.
The bullets Zakrevskaya, her colleagues and clients have discovered are not made of plastic; the video footage depicted men in uniforms shooting guns at protesters in Kiev.
“This trial could be compared to
the Bloody Sunday trial in Ireland or to the court hearing against the
murderers of protesters in Lithuania in 1991,” Zakrevskaya tells The
Daily Beast.
Click here for the full article.
Source: The Daily Beast
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