Two SDPU deputies and police clash in oblast chairman's hospital room (05/29/05)

Two SDPU deputies and police clash in oblast chairman's hospital room

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - After observing how authorities swiftly arrested accused Donetsk extortionist Borys Kolesnykov, the Social Democratic Party - United (SDPU) decided it wasn't going to go down without a fight.

Two SDPU activists, Nestor Shufrych and Tamara Proshkuratova, planted themselves in former Zakarpattia Oblast Chairman Ivan Rizak's hospital room in Uzhhorod the evening of May 20 to prevent his transfer to an isolation ward.

Their protest resulted in a videotaped brawl in which about a dozen armed and masked Sokil Special Forces shoved Mr. Shufrych to the floor, allegedly injuring him.

Despite what observers say was the obvious intention of the two SDPU national deputies to provoke a conflict, the videotape clip of Sokil officers in black masks manhandling Mr. Shufrych and Ms. Proshkuratova was an image that President Viktor Yushchenko's government could have done without. The tape was aired on 1+1 television.

"It was scary!," Ms. Proshkuratova told reporters afterwards. "Men in masks!"

The incident began when Sokil forces arrived at an Uzhhorod cardiology center at 10 p.m. in order to transfer Mr. Rizak to an isolation ward for temporary arrest, according to Ukrayinska Pravda, which quoted the police report.

Authorities arrested Mr. Rizak on May 13 and accused him of driving the dean of the University of Uzhhorod to suicide in May 2004. He also stands accused of engaging in massive corruption and electoral fraud.

After his arrest Mr. Rizak claimed to have severe heart problems, which if proven, would have resulted in his release from custody. However, the Zakarpattia Oblast Office of Judicial-Medical Expertise ruled that Mr. Rizak did not have an illness that justified his release from custody, Ukrayinska Pravda reported.

Masked Sokil forces entered Mr. Rizak's room and announced the experts' conclusions and court ruling, the police report said.

At that point, Mr. Shufrych and Ms. Proshkuratova began interfering with the policemen's discharge of their duties, threatening them and expressing their disagreement with the court's decision. Also in the room was SDPU National Deputy Volodymyr Voyush.

Ms. Proshkuratova then handcuffed herself to Mr. Rizak, according to the police report, although the SDPU version of events claims she had been handcuffed to Mr. Rizak for hours at that point.

According to Ms. Proshkuratova, the dozen Sokil forces then seized Mr. Shufrych, while two officers approached her.

Mr. Shufrych broke free from the officers' grip and tried pushing off the two officers approaching her, Ms. Proshkuratova said. Instead, the officers ended up grabbing him and slamming his head to the ground several times, knocking Mr. Shufrych unconscious, she said.

On the videotape, it is apparent that Mr. Shufrych is harshly shoved to the ground.

Ms. Proshkuratova also claimed to have fallen unconscious because she couldn't recall when or how the officers broke her handcuffs.

At that point, the Sokil forces managed to carry out the court orders and transfer Mr. Rizak to the isolation ward.

Ms. Proshkuratova suffered a small bruise and her right hand, which happened to be the handcuffed hand, was swollen according to an Interfax report.

However, the SDPU claimed in a statement that the officers beat Ms. Proshkuratova "brutally and cynically" and in an "animal-like fashion."

Mr. Shufrych claimed to have suffered a severe brain concussion from the melee. However, three days later, Ukraine's Health Minister Dr. Mykola Polishchuk said Mr. Shufrych had suffered no shock to his head.

"I am a neurosurgeon," Dr. Polishchuk said. "All neurosurgeons are my students. With the objective methods of investigation at hand, there was no shock to the brain."

Instead, Mr. Shufrych has signs of "old trauma to his frontal lobes," Dr. Polishchuk said.

However, doctors at the Boris medical clinic in Uzhhorod where Mr. Shufrych underwent treatment affirmed that Mr. Shufrych suffered damage to soft tissues in his brain, and had suffered a concussion to his brain.

Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Lutsenko acknowledged that the Sokil forces violated the law when injuring Mr. Shufrych. At the same time, national deputies don't have the right to attack police officers, he said.

Mr. Lutsenko even visited the SDPU deputies on May 24, when they were transferred to hospitals in Kyiv. He gave Ms. Proshkuratova flowers and Mr. Shufrych a box of Roshen chocolates. (Roshen is a company owned by Petro Poroshenko, who today is secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council.)

He also apologized to Mr. Shufrych and assured him that investigations were under way and any police officer determined to have breached the law will face prosecution.

Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun, the Ukrainian government's top prosecutor, had opened an investigation into the affair.

President Yushchenko said he believed both sides in the conflict acted inappropriately.

"We are all learning democracy, and I am convinced that Ukrainian society understands today that nobody, including political powers or national deputies, is supposed to instruct a Ukrainian court on how to act in this or another investigation," Mr. Yushchenko said.

After viewing the videotape, Mr. Yuschenko said he concluded that the police broke the law when dealing with Mr. Shufrych and Ms. Proshkuratova.

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