Ukraine detains 12 riot police for ‘mass murder’
2014-04-03 11:03
Ukraine police. (Andrii Skakodub, AFP)
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Kyiv – Twelve members of Ukraine’s disbanded ‘Berkut’ riot police have been detained on suspicion of shooting peaceful participants in Kyiv’s months-long anti-government protests, a spokesperson for the General Prosecutor said on Thursday.
More than 100 people were killed on the streets of the capital in the run-up to the ousting of Viktor Yanukovich on 21 February and the ‘Berkut’ force have largely been considered responsible.
“By this morning twelve people had been detained, all of them suspected of mass murder on Institutska Street,” a spokesperson for the general prosecutor told Reuters.
Institutska, which leads off from Kyiv’s Independence Square or ‘Maidan’, saw the worst violence in Ukraine’s 22 years of independence and has since been informally renamed as the Avenue of Heaven’s Hundred, a reference to those killed.
In the final violent days of the protests dozens of people were picked off by police snipers and general police shooting.
Ukraine’s acting Attorney General Oleh Makhnitsky said the detainees were members of a specialised force within the Berkut called the ‘Black Unit’.
“The police officers of this company were trained for special operations including the killing of people. They were overseen by the presidential administration,” Interfax Ukraine newswire quoted Makhnitsky as saying.
In late February the Interior Ministry disbanded the Berkut, whose name means golden eagle and signifies a predator capable of swooping quickly onto its prey.
Later on Thursday a special commission is due to hear the results of a preliminary investigation into the deaths at the ‘Maidan’ protests.
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