KIEV, January 16 (RIA Novosti) – A prominent Ukrainian female investigative journalist and activist Tatiana Chornovil, who was beaten up late last year, has been discharged from hospital, Ukraine’s UNIAN news agency said on Thursday.
Chornovil refused to comment on her present health condition or further actions.
According to police, Chornovil was driving home at about 1:30 a.m. local time (3:30 a.m. Moscow time) on December 25, 2013, when she noticed she was being followed by a dark-colored SUV. The car cut off her vehicle and forced her off the side of the road, after which several men jumped out and smashed the journalist’s rear car window.
The men dragged Chornovil out of her car and brutally beat her before abandoning her in a ditch.
Ukrainian police have initially opened a criminal investigation into the incident for hooliganism, which is punishable by up to four years in prison under Ukrainian law. However, harsher charges of inflicting grievous bodily harm were added later.
Five suspected attackers have been arrested. The possible motive for the attack is unknown.
Chornovil, an investigative journalist, blogger and mother of two children, had posted photos of what she alleged was the Ukrainian interior minister’s luxury villa on local web portal Ukrainskaya Pravda hours before the attack.
She also regularly reported on the development of Ukraine’s protest movement that emerged at the end of November after the president suddenly backed out of an association agreement with the European Union, and openly supported the country’s political opposition.
