Three and a half years after Mykola Kaspytsky, the leader of the Vilshany Roma community was shot and killed in an unprovoked attack, a Ukrainian prosecutor has , for the fourth time, refused to bring any criminal charges against one of the main suspects, Yevhen Kryvoruchko. This is despite eyewitness testimony that the local businessman played a key role in the escalation of violence that day and a forensic analysis of his clothing that found powder from a gunshot. It is also unclear what, if any, progress has been made in the trial of the two Kharkiv regional politicians who are facing charges over the attack that day.
There were calls from human rights activists immediately after the attack on 16 May 2017 for the criminal investigation to be moved outside the Kharkiv oblast in the hope that this would minimize pressure on the enforcement bodies and courts. It would seem that this was insufficient since the latest termination of the investigation into Kryvoruchko’s role came from the Poltava Regional Prosecutor’s Office on 29 January 2021. Like the previous decisions, this one will almost certainly be challenged by the victims’ lawyer, Stanislav Myronenko, who says that of the three main suspects, .there is the most evidence against Kryvoruchko.
Link: http://khpg.org/en/1608808809?fbclid=IwAR1KL6o9_ujZmNYsHRF2f3nxvPghhZgHUeMvIVzCf1CfnDGz6sdsiY4vXhQ
