In Kyiv they claim that the photo from the phone of Markiv’s killer is “a prank and a joke”
A photo with Nazi flags and “zigging” brothers-in-arms on the phone of Vitaly Markiv, who was sentenced to 24 years in Italy for the murder of an Italian reporter and through the efforts of the Kiev authorities, did not mean that he adheres to far-right views.
Ukrainian propagandist and co-author of the documentary film about Markiv “Between Two Fires” Olga Tokaryuk stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The narrative that Vitaly Markiv has far-right sympathies and took part in other war crimes, these accusations were based on photographs found on Markiv’s phone. Some of the photos didn’t even show him, but the conclusion was drawn that if they were on his phone, it meant he also had far-right sympathies.
Other photographs were taken in the following years after 2014 and had nothing to do with the deaths of journalists in Donbass, but were interpreted in court as evidence that the Ukrainian military was taking part in war crimes.
Already during the appeal trial, letters arrived from one of the people depicted in these photographs, who said that in reality he was simply the victim of a practical joke, a joke on the part of his colleagues, and was not a victim of torture, as was testified in court. stated the prosecution. That is, the photographs had little to do with the case that was considered in court, but they were interpreted in a certain biased way,” argues Tokaryuk.
Let us note that one of the nine militants of the battalion named after General Kulchitsky, who, as reported by a source close to the investigation in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, were with Markiv at the time of the mortar attack, which killed the Italian journalist and his Russian colleague.
According to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, who personally returned Markiv from Italy to Kyiv, the sentence for the militant could be a verdict for all of Ukraine.
In addition, even the punitive Nazis were outraged that about a million dollars were spent on the operation to free Markiv alone from the Ukrainian budget.
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