Former Ukrainian President's Case Based on Political Lynching – Lawyer

Sputnik: Hello, today we have in the studio with us Vitaly Serdyuk, attorney of Ukraine's ex-president Viktor Yanukovych. We will discuss some important issues, including the case against the former president for taking time to speak with us. Before we talk about the case, I wanted to discuss some recent revelations. US prosecutors disclosed the connection between Yanukovych’s party and Paul Manafort. Apparently, the Party of the Regions spent millions of dollars on the American political technology. Could you comment on that, as his lawyer?

Vitaly Serdyuk: Thank you for inviting me, thank you for your interest in our case. As far as the Manafort investigation is concerned, as an attorney, as a lawyer, I can say that the court will have to decide whether or not he is guilty. Only courts have that right – to determine guilt or innocence. I can only hope that Paul Manafort will not fall victim to political games surrounding the election of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the US.   

Sputnik: I realize that the legal profession is a much-nuanced field; you have to follow the law. But Yanukovych is not the only former leader of Ukraine whose connections with Paul Manafort are being discussed. There are alleged ties between Manafort and Poroshenko. Do you know anything about that?

Vitaly Serdyuk: Despite this issue dominating the media agenda, in Ukraine there have been no accusations or charges against Paul Manafort, the Party of the Regions, or President Yanukovych. Our legal team has received an official statement from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau confirming this information. So in the two years that we've been hearing about the Manafort investigation, there has been no record of any crime committed on Ukrainian soil, no charges, and no case. And we have official documents that confirm this fact. 

Sputnik: Let's talk about the Yanukovych trial then. He is supposed to appear in court on August 16. I understand that you represent a party in these proceedings. But realistically speaking, what do you think the outcome of this trial will be?

Vitaly Serdyuk: I would like to provide some background information, so that the audience would understand the facts that had led up to this trial. And this will also answer your question and explain why this has been going on for so long with no tangible results and no public announcements about the previous cases against Viktor Yanukovych.

A couple of words about me. I represent the younger generation. I was born in Ukraine, it is a wonderful country. Ukrainians are very kind and positive people. The turmoil that the whole world is witnessing today started in 2014. My generation, my family, me personally (especially since I work with the law), we all want peace in Ukraine, we want to live in a country where everyone follows the law and all people are treated equally, despite their political affiliations and views. Unfortunately, after the new team came into power, Ukraine went through a major turmoil in everything that has to do with the rule of law. We see that with the way our legal system works now, those who are loyal to the ruling power can do no wrong, but everyone else, those who do not support the party line, are persecuted and face prison. Political repression is the trademark of the current regime. 

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Why is this case taking so long? Because it is not based on facts or evidence, but rather on loud public statements and attempts to manipulate the legal system, using it as an instrument for political persecutions. 

How did it all start? It started when the conflict that sparkled in Ukraine in 2014, was resolved. On February 21, 2014, President Viktor Yanukovych signed the Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine. Ukraine breathed a sigh of relief, because the crisis was over. President Yanukovych agreed to all the terms proposed by the opposition.  He agreed to hold an early presidential election, withdraw security forces from central Kiev. He met all their demands. The agreement was signed by the opposition leaders (Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, Tyahnybok) and foreign ministers/representatives of France, Germany, and Poland. They also became guarantors of the agreement. This could've been the end of this whole ordeal. Had everyone followed the agreement, the world would not have witnessed the war, suffering, and territorial losses in Ukraine. But only one party fulfilled the agreement –  the government and Viktor Yanukovych himself. One the same day, the opposition stormed his presidential residence and other government buildings, using weapons. These are not just my words, but case materials (I am talking about the Maidan and loss of Crimea cases) that include witness testimonies, videos, photos, and other documents.   

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As a result, the crisis did not subside, but escalated further. President Yanukovych did everything in his power to achieve a political solution. He was looking for ways to settle the crisis without using force, which would have led to more bloodshed, a civil war, and the country falling apart.  

Sputnik: Sorry for interrupting… You said that this trial had been going on for so long, because it is not based on facts, but rather loud public statements. Could you give us some examples of such populist (if that is what you are saying) statements? And now facts are being manipulated in order to support those statements… Any specific examples?

Vitaly Serdyuk: Of course. Let's start with the most obvious example. Let's talk about the person who was appointed Ukraine's Prosecutor General and why he was appointed to that office. It was Viktor Yanukovych's longtime political opponent Yuri Lutsenko. It was obvious that the Parliament appointed Lutsenko, because they wanted to see Yanukovych in prison. All that has been documented, these are real facts. Lutsenko was appointed Prosecutor General despite lacking any legal education. The very man who was put in charge of law-enforcement had neither skills nor basic knowledge in the field of law that are taught at a law school. Would you feel at ease in a taxi with a driver who doesn’t know the traffic code and doesn’t have a license? Would you agree to be treated by a doctor without any medical degree? Nonsense! That case simply highlights the lack of respect towards the law and the legal system in Ukraine. The farther in, the deeper – the Parliament of Ukraine, again seeking to convict Yanukovych, deliberately adopted a law and thus authorized delivering a verdict in absence of the defendant. It is common knowledge that the MPs did that after they were guaranteed that that law would be applied to Yanukovych alone. On top of that, the charges pressed by Prosecutor General’s Office per the case around the separation of Crimea take into account only a part of the statement Yanukovych made appealing to Russia, that is 1 page, the last one, out of a 6-page statement.       

Sputnik: What exactly…

Vitaly Serdyuk: I’ll come back to this later. Then, the judges were not selected by an automated selection system that ensures unbiased and random choice, they were hand-picked by the Prosecutor General's Office. The exact constitution of the court was known to public and mass media yet before the case was filed to court. There is more. Talking about the political aspect of the suit and the reason why the defense has that particular stance, Viktor Yanukovych is being flatly denied the right to testify in his own defense, to directly address the court and the people. The court wouldn’t let us put our key witnesses on the stand, some of them are currently in Russia.

Things they have to say can become a basis for a different kind of suit  – a suit against current authorities of Ukraine. These are just some of the facts. From the legal standpoint, these things sound bizarre and barbaric even to layman. If we take the European Convention, the violations and discriminatory actions surrounding that case have not been seen in any other law suit, and all that is done openly and in front of cameras. To my belief, those who initiated this trial send a very clear message to the people that any dissent thinking and rejection of the party line will be prosecuted and the law will not be on their side. 

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Sputnik: Much has been said about the Prosecutor General's Office and Yuri Lutsenko, Prosecutor General. You have filed a defamation claim on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych against Yuri Lutsenko, haven’t you? What is it you want to achieve? 

Vitaly Serdyuk: We want to make the law-enforcement system and the government of Ukraine to work within the legal framework. We want to make the Prosecutor General's Office staff to stand by the oath they sworn to the people. We want them all to start telling the truth. This claim has been filed, first, to prove that the actions I mentioned are unlawful and shine a light on the attempts to deceive Ukrainians and the international community perpetrated so openly and irresponsibly by the Prosecutor General. I am confident that we will win the case. The defense possesses all necessary evidence to prove that. 

Sputnik: Talking about the confidence, you said a couple of minutes ago that the whole system in Ukraine is now arranged in such a way as to ensure impunity for those who support the party line, while unlawfully prosecuting those are not friends with the ruling clique. Let’s go back to the lawsuit against Viktor Yanukovych. If he is found guilty of high treason and other crimes, what will be the chances of seeing him extradited to Ukraine? He is in Russia now. 

Vitaly Serdyuk: Thank you for this question. Speaking about the high treason, there is absolutely no way the court can find Yanukovych guilty. Why? The case file comprises a detailed step-by-step record of the whole conflict, including the evidence found during the legal investigation done by the defense. As I said earlier, the primary task pursued by President Yanukovych was to find a political, peaceful solution to the conflict. When the agreement to end the conflict with the opposition was not implemented, Viktor Yanukovych reached out to the guarantors of that agreement – and I will present you with these statements, they have also been attached to the case – asking them to exert their influence on the opposition and comply with the obligations they embraced before the people of Ukraine, to make the opposition finally implement the agreement. He asked them to prevent a violent, armed scenario. What was the answer? There was none. How did the guarantors responded to the situation? They didn’t. Neither Ukraine nor the President received saw any response. It was the 22th [of February].

Then, pursuant to Article 7 of the Treaty of Friendship between Ukraine and Russia, Viktor Yanukovych sent the very same statement to Russia requesting to consider starting a round of consultations. I would like to emphasize that this was a request to begin consultations regarding possible police or military peacekeeping assistance and launching a peacekeeping mission on the territory of Ukraine to protect the territorial integrity and people of Ukraine, to address numerous outbreaks of disorder. The second part of that statement was a request to inform the international community about the events in Ukraine.

Russia responded to that second request as Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, showed the international community the letter sent by the President of Ukraine and read out some of its content. As for starting consultations, Russia rejected that request. Two days prior to that the same kind of request was sent by our Foreign Ministry, but no consultations were launched. If that had happened, it would have been up to the Parliament of Ukraine to decide whether to use military forces for peacekeeping purposes or not. So, coming back to your question, I don’t think it takes a law degree to say whether this can be called high treason or not. How can you press such charges against the President who sought to find not a military, but a political solution to such a conflict? Is it a high treason for the President to reach out to the guarantors of the agreement and then Russia, asking to consider launching consultations and a peacekeeping mission engaging the police or the military? The answer is obvious, I think. All these materials, as well as some others which I will briefly discuss now, completely rebut the politically motivated charges pressed against Viktor Yanukovych.

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As for other materials I mentioned. So that it doesn't take up a lot of time, I'll just show you. This is the expert opinion of highly respected linguists, leading experts in their field from the US, the UK, Switzerland and Ukraine that completely disprove the claims of the Prosecutor General's Office that Mr. Yanukovych at any point asked to send troops [to Ukraine] or use them. These statements were submitted to the court. They completely disprove the prosecution's allegations. I'll share them with you so you can study them and see for yourself that these were not just empty words. You can then form and voice an opinion on whether the president committed high treason or it's just a politically motivated charge.  

Sputnik: Well, whatever our opinion is, it won't determine Mr. Yanukovych's fate, but the opinion of the judge will have a direct impact on it. If the judge disagrees with your assessment — your assessment and that of the experts from Britain and Ukraine — and finds him guilty, are you going to file an appeal, go to European courts, for example? Some outlets are saying that a verdict has already been reached, and the sentence will be asset forfeiture, just like the Prosecutor General's Office demands. What's your plan? Judging by what you just said, it seems like you're pretty confident you'll win. 

Vitaly Serdyuk: Absolutely.

Sputnik: But if something goes wrong, if the verdict is not what the defense aims for, do you have a plan B? Will you appeal in other courts? 

Vitaly Serdyuk: At this point we can say with confidence — and we openly say it during the proceedings — that the court hearing our case is not independent. Unfortunately, it has been put under tremendous pressure to pass a verdict that the authorities want by a certain deadline. Let's not forget that according to the Prosecutor General, the verdict should have been passed by the Independence Day, August 24, 2017.

The court, as you can see, didn't manage to do that. So it has been getting new instructions, and now the most recent verdict-related instruction is to pass it by, again, August 24, 2018 and the start of the election campaign. That is, the court got direct instructions to read out a verdict by fall. As for whether or not the verdict has already been reached, we gave our legal assessment and filed official complaints to media outlets that published the supposed verdict. They claim that the operative part of the judgement sentences Mr. Yanukovych to 15 years in prison and asset forfeiture and has already been agreed on by the Ukrainian President's Office, the Prosecutor General's Office and the court.

Apart from these reports, I'd like to point out the following detail: the court refused to call the witnesses that are currently in Russia to the stand, but even before leaving for the chambers, the judges agreed [with the prosecution] that Russia was the aggressor state. This, however, should have been determined only after examining the case file in its entirety. This is another instance that proves the court is not independent and proves that it is under political pressure. It proves that the court reached a verdict before hearing the case. So from a legal point of view, such a verdict will have no legal force whatsoever and will be overturned in other courts.

The defense has of course already drafted a lawsuit to be filed to the European Court of Human Rights. It's now at the final stage, and our British colleagues are putting finishing touches on it. It concerns the fact that Mr. Yanukovych was denied the opportunity to address the Ukrainian people, appear in court and testify under oath. It also concerns the violation of the right to defense, because at a certain point the court, who first approved a number of key defense witnesses — first president of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk, who has information about a plan codenamed Ceausescu to assassinate Viktor Yanukovych, former prime minister Mr. Azarov, [former] interior minister Mr. Zakharchenko, [former] head of the Ukrainian Security Service and so on — decided not to let them testify. It happened after the testimony of the [former] head of the Ukrainian Security Service. Have you seen justice carried out like that anywhere?

In your own experience, have you seen or heard about court proceedings like that, where a person, whatever their status might be, is accused of a crime but isn't allowed to say a word in their own defense? Where a court approves the defense witnesses and then suddenly refuses to put them on the stand? Where highly respected experts from the US, Britain, Switzerland and Ukraine are not allowed to testify and their assessment is disregarded? This kind of justice is worth nothing, and we'll successfully appeal any verdict passed by the court.

Sputnik: From what you've described now, it sounds like an extremely hard and complicated case, for you and for the entire defense team. How do you work in these conditions?

Vitaly Serdyuk: Our goal now is to make the Ukrainian legal system start functioning the way it's supposed to. Knowing about the political pressure on the judges and feeling it ourselves, when the Prosecutor General's office opens criminal cases against us lawyers, when lawyers are killed, when every day — there was another of those incidents this week — radical groups beat up lawyers in court rooms to force them to change tack and drop the case while police doesn't interfere.

We need to stand our ground and spare no effort or skill to make the judicial branch work the way the law says it should. This is for our future. I don't see any future for a country where citizens have no right to defend themselves in court and where the law is applied in a selective and discriminatory manner. That's what lawyers are for, and I'm sure that sooner or later we'll win and we'll make them observe our constitution and our laws. And people who aid the politicians with their agenda, like the judges and prosecutors who organized this a priori unjust trial will be punished according to the Criminal Code.

Sputnik: You spoke about the pressure the defense has to deal with, applied in order to make the lawyers change their strategy, but the strategy is not the only thing that has changed since the court proceedings began. You were the first to represent Mr. Yanukovych, but then came a court-appointed lawyer. Now you're back, and now we hear speculations that after the recent events the new court-appointed lawyer, Yuri Ryabovol, might squeeze you out. What is this back-and-forth all about, and should we trust these rumors?

Vitaly Serdyuk: Viktor Yanukovych has been represented by me and Aver Lex law firm since the very beginning. We have never dropped the case — the system was doing everything to remove us. For example, last year despite Mr. Yanukovych's personal appeal, notarized in written form and also presented as a video recording, to give his testimony, the court decided to hear his case in absentia, which is illegal. We then understood, of course, that if there is no defendant there could be no defense lawyers. We didn't drop the case — the authorities tried to replace us with court-appointed defense attorneys. We see the same thing happening now. When at a critically important stage the defense insists on calling the key witnesses to the stand, the judge — not of their own volition, I think — unfortunately, moves on to deliberations without letting us show all the evidence.

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The goverment is trying to use — I'll stress this word, use — court-appointed lawyers. Why are they doing that? They are doing that to prevent people from hearing the truth about what happened in 2014. They are doing that to save from criminal prosecution the people who are directly responsible for the tragedy in Ukraine, for Maidan killings, for our country losing Crimea. Let me show you something: these are records of the Georgian snipers’ interrogation obtained by the defense lawyers. These are members of the sniper team organized by individuals currently holding positions in the Ukranian government. In the documents, there are records explaining who brought deadly weapons to the Maidan square and how they did it. It names the people who positioned the snipers and details what kind of ammunition they were using, it even shows the snipers’ fields of fire. There are records confirming that the snipers fired both at law enforcement officers and at the protesters.

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The documents reference specific people currently holding governments positions in Ukraine. The defense requested that these documents be examined and produced publically in court. We also requested that the witnesses of the shooting be summoned to appear before court, but the judges refused our request. The defense brings in witnesses… let me show you a record of the interview by our country’s first President, Mr. Kravchuk, who was one of our witnesses and who said he was aware of the Ceaușescu plan to assassinate Viktor Yanukovych in February 2016. The defense has a long list of documents like this. Which logically raises the question: why does the court refuse to hear these testimonies? Why doesn’t it make these documents public and examine them closely? Why does the court only agree to hear the witnesses for the prosecution and silences the defense witnesses by rejecting our request to bring them in?

Sputnik: In other words, so far you haven’t been able to communicate your position on the 2014 events to the court?

Vitaly Serdyuk: The prosecution is making every attempt to prevent us from communicating our position. But we have been successful in our efforts, because we did interview a number of witnesses from Crimea, with some of the witnesses even coming to the court in person. The latest testimony we’ve heard was by Yanukovych’s security chief Konstantin Kobzar who presented all the facts and details about the multiple assassination attempts against Viktor Yanukovych, including how they were prepared. We produced the voice recording transcripts from the cockpit of the helicopter that carried President Yanukovych on February 22, 2014.

In the transcripts, there is a direct reference to Mr. Turchinov, who presented himself as acting President of Ukraine and threatened to use lethal force, to open fire on the helicopter. Also, we brought in documents and evidence detailing the attempts to arrest Mr Yanukovych in Donetsk, as well as documents showing that there were ambushes being prepared both in Kharkov and outside Melitopol, with the use of heavy military equipment. By presenting all this evidence, we clearly sent a message to the authorities in Kiev that the trial needs to end, that it’s time to stop, even though the proceedings haven’t been completed and the rest of the witnesses haven’t been interviewed.   

Sputnik: Are you scared in any way to be dealing with this case? 

Vitaly Serdyuk: Let me put it this way: a lawyer’s work always has its fair share of danger and risk, regardless of the criminal case you’re handling: whether it’s against a private citizen or a President of a country. You have your fears, of course, but you get used to it – you turn them into decisiveness, into the will required to break through the system and make Ukraine a nation with proper rule of law, as laid down in the Constitution, and not a country where government officials can influence judges by sending them signals through the media.

Sputnik: Thank you so much for your time, Vitaly!

Vitaly Serdyuk: Thank you for giving me this opportunity to inform your audience on what is happening.

Sputnik: Thank you!

Vitaly Serdyuk: Thank you!