Just one day ahead of the opening of his trial for treason in Obolon District Court of Kyiv, Ukraine’s runaway former President Viktor Yanukovych, withdrew his defense lawyers from the court in what appeared to be a move calculated to disrupt the proceedings.
“I don’t want to take part in a trial with a foregone conclusion,” Yanukovych said in a video address published by Russian state-owned TV channel Perviy Kanal on July 5.
“They (the judges) would have tried to convict me anyway. That’s why I decided to withdraw my lawyers from the process. I have no doubt about their professionalism, but even the best defenders are powerless in a state of destroyed justice.”
The trial hearings opened at 10 a.m. on July 6 but lasted for less than 30 minutes, as neither the defendant nor his defense team was present in the courtroom. The judges ordered a public defense lawyer be appointed by the state for Yanukovych, and postponed the hearing until July 12 so that the new lawyer would have time to study the materials of the case.
A few minutes before the start of the court hearing, Yanukovych lawyers Vitaly Serdyuk and Ihor Fedorenko, both seen near the court building in Kyiv, told the journalists that they had informed the court that their client was withdrawing them.
Military prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko, the leader of the prosecution in Yanukovych’s case, told the press on July 6 that Yanukovych had withdrawn his lawyers because he wanted to delay the trial and evade justice.
Yanukovych, who fled Ukraine in the winter 2014 during the EuroMaidan Revolution, has been in Russia for more than three years. Since November, the runaway president has been a suspect in several serious crime cases, including high treason, and aiding in an intentional act committed to alter Ukraine’s state border and conduct an aggressive war.
“I had no illusions about the aim of the trial,” Yanukovych said in the video address. “The current Ukrainian regime is pushing the judges to convict me of all of the past, present and future misfortunes of Ukraine.”
Yanukovych said his trial in absentia was a “sheer profanity” and said it violated the European Convention on Human Rights.
The fugitive president contradicted himself at the end of the address: While first saying he himself had refused to take part in the trial, he then claimed he had asked Ukrainian prosecutors to let him take part in the trial via a Skype video call, but that this had been denied.
Kravchenko said the prosecutors offered Yanukovych to take part in the court proceedings via a video link or in any way convenient for him. He said this could be done even without the direct involvement of a Russian court.
During court hearings on Nov. 28, Yanukovych gave witness testimony from Russia’s Rostov-On-Don district court during the trial of five ex-officers of the Interior Ministry’s now-disbanded Berkut riot police squad.
After the disgraced president gave his Skype testimony in that case, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, who was in the Ukrainian court, informed the ex-president that he was to be put on trial for treason.
