Hearings on Murder of SBU Officer Closed to the Public

A preliminary hearing in the case of last year’s murder of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officer Viktor Mandzyk in Volnovakha will now be closed to the public, Novosti Donbassa reports [ed.: the text of this hyperlink is in the Russian language].

Prosecutors asked to make the hearing closed for the sake of the safety of all participants due to previous disorderly conduct and threats addressed to the court and prosecutors from people who attended the hearing. The defendants and their lawyers were against this proposal. Their lawyer Vitaliy Pogosyan mentioned that the presence of many armed police officers at the hearing already makes it safe enough.

The preliminary hearing to determine further pre-trial restrictions for the defendants has been going on for three days. On June 26, after a day in court the defendants were taken to hospital, where they were allegedly beaten by unidentified law enforcement officers. On June 27, the defendants exited the courtroom cage themselves by breaking the doors. Special forces did not let them out of the courtroom.

Denys Hordeyev, Pravyi Sektor fighter call sign Advokat, is accused of murdering the SBU officer Viktor Mandzyk with his own service weapon. He and six other defendants are also accused of a series of armed robberies of shops and individuals in Donetsk oblast between November 2014 and March 2015, as well as of stealing cars.

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda