Neither road rage nor poor performance by police are new issues in Ukraine. But a gang-style attack on one of Ukraine’s most prominent politicians has focused public attention on both issues at once.
Mustafa Nayyem, a lawmaker in President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, was driving near central Kyiv’s Bessarabsky Market on April 30 when an expensive BMW attempted to cut him off.
“I don’t like that,” Nayyem later wrote in a Facebook post. “Especially rich kids and escort cars (with bodyguards).” He was describing something many Ukrainians would recognize: powerful people who think the rules of the road don’t apply to them.
In response, the lawmaker blocked the road. A conflict soon erupted, and the other car’s driver, passenger and their friends beat Nayyem, leaving him with a broken jaw and concussion.
On Facebook, Nayyem stressed that he had never presented himself as a parliamentarian during the fight and that he called the police as an ordinary citizen. He asked Ukrainians not to stir controversy and described the incident as unconnected to politics.
But after one of the suspects managed to flee the country, the case increasingly looks like a test of law and order in Ukraine.
The attack
After Nayyem blocked the road and came into conflict with the other car’s driver and passenger, the lawmaker called the police. Meanwhile, the other men called their friends, Nayyem wrote.
Once the friends arrived, the group attacked Nayyem. A video of the scene released by the Ukrainska Pravda news site shows what appears to be five men shoving and punching Nayyem.
Nayyem then chased his attackers to Saksahanskoho Street, into the Metrograd underground shopping center, into the Arena Plaza complex, and then onto Skoropadskoho Street. There, one of the members of the group caught up to Nayyem from behind, and knocked him onto the roadway.
“Then I chased after him, caught him, jumped on him, and then fell head first on the asphalt. I can’t remember how that happened…,” Nayyem told Ukrainska Pravda. “(When I was) already on the ground, they kicked me for a short time.”
After the incident, police detained three of the participants in the fight. Two were Russian citizens with temporary residency in Ukraine. The third was a Ukrainian citizen. All were in their early 20s.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, the three detained men are suspected of “hooliganism.” Meanwhile, a fourth man, who escaped, is suspected of “intentional moderate bodily harm.”
The whereabouts of the fifth man — reportedly the BMW’s driver — remain unknown. As of May 2, the police are looking for him, although he is not accused of taking part in the fight, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
Breakdown
In the wake of the incident, a doctor performed surgery on Nayyem. The lawmaker also spent much of the night at the police station, where he wrote a statement about the incident and identified the three suspects.
However, Nayyem could already see problems emerging, he wrote on Facebook. Although all four suspects were initially set to be charged with hooliganism and bodily harm, the three detained men were only charged with hooliganism. Furthermore, the investigators had not yet petitioned the court to carry out a medical examination on Nayyem and access related documents. Without this, complete investigative materials could not be submitted to the court.
However, the “strangest thing” concerned the fourth suspect, Nayyem wrote. Although the police knew his legal address, had identified him, and had promised to find him, the suspect still managed to board a plane at Kyiv Boryspil International Airport and fly to Baku, Azerbaijan.
And the police were not able to locate his car, despite the fact that they found a second car involved in the incident. They even launched the search for the first car late, Nayyem wrote.
“I don’t have answers to the question of why things are this way,” Nayyem wrote on Facebook. “I know that a few people in various (state) structures have already proposed coming to an agreement (with the suspects) — to hush up the case, free the boys, and hit the brakes.”
“I truly hope that both the investigators and the prosecutors are playing on the side of the law, and not on the side of the dealmakers,” he added.
Next steps
On May 2, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry added the man believed to be the fourth suspect, Magomed-Amin Saitov, to the wanted list. In a Facebook post, Anton Herashchenko, a lawmaker from the People’s Front party who is also an advisor to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, said Saitov would be added to the Interpol wanted list.
A screen shot the Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s wanted list entry for Magomed-Amin Saitov, suspected of attacking lawmaker Mustafa Nayyem after an altercation on a central Kyiv street. Saitov reportedly managed to flee to Baku, Azerbaijan and will be added to the Interpol wanted list.
Saitov now has a choice, Herashchenko wrote: either live his whole life in countries that won’t extradite him to Ukraine or voluntarily turn himself in, request forgiveness, provide moral and material compensation to Nayyem, and receive the minimal criminal sentence for the crime, with the victim’s agreement.
Herashchenko also defended the actions of the National Police and the Interior Ministry. He suggested that it would have been possible to capture Saitov under more typical circumstances. However, the suspect clearly realized that he had beaten up a prominent individual. As a result, Saitov purchased a plane ticket to Baku at around 6:00 p.m., just 15 to 20 minutes after the fight.
He also criticized claims that the suspects would try to make an under-the-table deal with the authorities to escape punishment. “That information does not match reality,” he wrote.
The lawmaker also stated that all three detained suspects would face both hooliganism and bodily harm charges.
“A court and judgment await them,” Herashchenko wrote. “Therefore, no one is going to ‘resolve’ anything and no one will come to an agreement with anyone.”
