KIEV, January 11 (RIA Novosti) – An opposition politician was put into intensive care in Ukraine after a tussle with police following the jailing of three alleged anti-Communist terrorists on Friday.
A district court in the capital Kiev sentenced three people to six years in jail over an alleged plot to blow up a monument to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in 2011.
Convicts’ supporters tried to block the police van that was taking the three men from the courtroom late Friday, prompting an attack from Berkut riot police.
Yury Lutsenko, a prominent opposition leader and former police chief, tried to stop the fighting, but was beaten up by his former subordinates, his wife Irina said.
He is currently in intensive care with head injury, Irina Lutsenko was cited as saying by Pravda.com.ua news website.
A case was opened into the politician’s beating, Kiev Prosecutor Office said Saturday.
Yury Lutsenko, 49, is one of the leaders of the ongoing “Euromaidan” anti-government protest camp in Kiev.
Participants of the camp, set up in November, oppose President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to opt out of an association agreement with the EU in favor of Russia, as well as alleged rights abuse by his government and Berkut, which mounted a harsh crackdown on the camp on November 30.
Ukraine is also the site of an ongoing “monument war” that sees both Communist and nationalist sculptures in public places blown up or mutilated.
The crimes are attributed to ultranationalists and the radical left, respectively, but perpetrators are rarely found.
