Interfax: Crimean official denies local police involvement in protesters’ deaths in Kiev

(Interfax – April 3, 2014) The first deputy prime minister of Crimea, Rustam Temirgaliyev, has rejected accusations voiced by the chief of the Ukrainian Security Service, Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, that police officers whom the Ukrainian authorities accuse of shooting anti-government protesters in Kiev in February are hiding in Crimea, Russian privately-owned news agency Interfax reported on 3 April.

The report quoted Temirgaliyev as saying that Crimean law-enforcement officers had not used weapons during the unrest in Kiev.

“This is a blatant act of provocation. Its aim is to discredit the Crimean law-enforcement structures. None of the people who took part in that shooting are in Crimea, our law-enforcement bodies did not take part in that,” Temirgaliyev said.

He was further quoted as saying that three Crimean policemen had been killed in the unrest in Kiev, adding that they had been unarmed.

“Three our policemen were killed at the hands of so-called ‘peaceful demonstrators’, and the position of the Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies here is very one-sided. For some reason, nobody is investigating the death of our policemen,” Temirgaliyev said.