Ukrainian National Assembly leader elected deputy, but still imprisoned (04/14/02)

Ukrainian National Assembly leader elected deputy, but still imprisoned

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Andrii Shkil, the former leader of the ultra-right paramilitary organization the Ukrainian National Assembly, remained locked up in a prison of Ukraine's intelligence service on April 11, nearly two weeks after being elected a national deputy to Ukraine's Parliament, even though his new status gives him immunity from criminal prosecution.

Mr. Shkil has remained incarcerated along with 15 other young adults, many of them fellow UNA members, for the past 13 months, since the violent and bloody street demonstrations in Kyiv on March 9, 2001.

While a Lviv Oblast Court upheld the validity of elections in Electoral District 121 of the Lviv Oblast, where voters gave Mr. Shkil the nod, a Kyiv Municipal Court has hedged on his release. Mr. Shkil and his supporters believe the delays are tactical maneuvers by state authorities who are searching for a way to keep him imprisoned.

"Although a legally elected official is not to be imprisoned, I am in jail," said Mr. Shkil. "All it would take is for one of the judges to sign the piece of paper authorizing my release."

Mr. Shkil made his comments from inside a 15-square-foot steel pen in which he and the 15 other prisoners were held as they waited in court for the appearance of the court tribunal. After a two-hour delay, two members of the three-judge tribunal responsible for the case finally appeared and announced the court session would have to be delayed because the third judge had been hospitalized.

Mr. Shkil's attorney, Mykola Yanko, was blunt in his assessment of the situation.

"The judges are scared. They do not have the courage to take upon themselves the release," explained Mr. Yanko.

The attorney said that if his client were not released he would appeal the case to the Kyiv Appellate Court.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Mr. Shkil took 26 percent of the vote in the March 31 parliamentary elections to defeat his closest rival, Leonid Tkachuk of the Social Democratic Party (United), and eight other candidates. By Ukrainian law, Mr. Shkil now has immunity from criminal prosecution for the duration of his time in office. There is other precedent for releasing him from government custody. In 1998, after gaining victory in parliamentary elections, ex-National Deputy Mykhailo Brodskyi was released from jail, where he was being held on charges of embezzlement.

Although some government officials said the delays in releasing Mr. Shkil were due to a court challenge to the election results, which was expected the next day, a Lviv Oblast Court upheld the validity of the vote in District 121 (Sambir) on April 10.

It is not the first time that court actions in the matter of the 16 detained activists have been postponed or delayed. The detainees have conducted hunger strikes and other actions to protest the fact they have not been granted the right to bail. Mr. Yanko said that the detentions are illegal.

"They are not a threat. It takes but a couple of hours to review the cases and some political will to sign the documents," said Mr. Yanko.

Mr. Shkil, the 39-year-old firebrand and leader of the radical nationalist party UNA, which is largely composed of young people, has been imprisoned since March 9 when he was arrested after leading demonstrations through Kyiv in protest against the policies and alleged criminal behavior of President Leonid Kuchma and a coterie of his state officials.

The government considers Mr. Shkil the prime instigator and public enemy number one in the violent encounters between demonstrators and state militia that took place that day, first near Shevchenko Park and later near the Presidential Administration Building. The bloody clashes included the tossing of Molotov cocktails and smoke bombs; they ended with law enforcement officials using tear gas to disperse the crowds. Dozens of individuals from both sides were injured in the melees.

That evening the state militia conducted a sweep of trains leaving for Lviv and arrested some 200 students who had taken part in the demonstrations, most of whom were quickly released. They also detained most of the UNA leadership. While Mr. Shkil was released after a few days, he was rearrested in May and officially charged with organizing mass unrest. Mr. Shkil headed the Ukrainian National Assembly from 1999 until last autumn, when he was replaced while in detainment.

Mr. Shkil's political partners in last year's anti-Kuchma demonstrations - the Batkivschyna Party, today part of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, and the Socialist Party - have both called for Mr. Shkil's release. Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc leaders Stepan Khmara and Oleksander Turchynov have been closely involved in the effort to free the UNA activist, who is expected to join their faction in the Verkhovna Rada.

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