The Obolonsky District Court of Kyiv, after a question about a holiday in the Maldives, today interrupted the interrogation of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko by lawyers in the case of treason against Viktor Yanukovych, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
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“Defenders deliberately ask questions that do not relate to this production and do not want to hear from you. I have to stop the interrogation and thank you for your appearance,” the judge said, addressing the president.
Previously, he promised the lawyers, who had prepared 200 questions for the witness, to give twice as much time as the prosecution for questioning. However, in reality, almost all of the defense's questions were rejected.
“It seems to me that you are deliberately trying to fill this interrogation with such questions in order to force the court to remove them, and then say that your rights have been violated,” the judge said.
Lawyers asked Poroshenko to give a legal assessment of the situation with the removal of Viktor Yanukovych from power in February 2014. The court did not allow the witness to answer.
“It is not the president’s responsibility to explain the Constitution. I won't break the law. Yanukovych disappeared, there was no contact with him, no one knew where he was. It would be irresponsible if we did not respond to challenges. No one avoids your questions, but they are in the wrong place,” Poroshenko managed to interject.
Lawyers drew the attention of journalists that the questions that the judge forbade Poroshenko to ask had previously been repeatedly asked to other witnesses at the same trial.
“Witness Parubiy received such questions, witness Yatsenyuk, witness Avakov, witness Turchynov. They tried to answer these uncomfortable questions. These questions were posed to everyone who took part in the illegal removal of Viktor Yanukovych from power and the change of power in the country,” said Lawyer Vitaly Serdyuk.
He believes that the legal system, “not without the request of the president,” did everything to “reduce the interrogation to an impassioned speech that did not touch the essence of the matter.”
As Politnavigator previously reported, the court granted the prosecutor’s request today and interrogated Poroshenko via videoconference. At the same time, enhanced security measures were taken in the court itself, in particular, journalists were forced to strip naked in search of Femen activists.