Interfax: Kharkiv mayor doesn’t expect fair trial on abduction, torture, threat of murder charges

KHARKIV, Ukraine. March 5 (Interfax) – Kharkiv’s mayor, who is charged with abduction confinement, torture and threats of murder, said on Thursday that he did not expect a fair trial but that he would fight to prove his innocence.

“I don’t expect justice from my accusers, I don’t believe I will have a fair trial, but I stand ready to fight,” a statement from the Kharkiv City Council quoted Hennadiy Kernes as saying.

“The buzz against me in the press is a lot of empty PR. I reject my charges, there is no new evidence, and the court will be presented with sufficient proof of my non-complicity and the political motivation of this case,” Kernes said.

“For a year already, I have been persecuted and there has been a show investigation, but in actual fact it’s an attempt to discredit me in the eyes of the people of Kharkiv. One specific example is an attempt to change the jurisdiction of the case: though the Office of the Prosecutor General has declared Kharkiv the site of the alleged crime, they want to try me in Kyiv. It’s an obvious attempt to stage a biased trial and have a means of putting pressure on the judiciary,” he said.

On January 25, 2015, unidentified individuals assaulted participants in a pro-Maidan procession in Kharkiv. The same day Kharkiv Regional Council deputy Ivan Varchenko of the Fatherland (Batkivshchyna) party claimed that Maidan activists Olexander Kutyanin and Olexiy Ryapolov had been abducted.

Later, the regional police authority said the claim had not been confirmed.

On Monday, the Office of the Prosecutor General announced that Kernes was charged with “illegal confinement or abduction,” “torture” and “threat of murder” and that pre-trial investigations into his alleged crimes were over.