12:49 22.08.2015

Ex-security official remanded in custody in Euromaidan killings inquiry

2 min read

A former Kyiv security chief, Oleksandr Shcoholev, has been remanded in custody until October 20 as part of an inquiry into the killing of activists during Euromaidan protests, in accordance with the ruling of Kyiv's Pechersky District Court.

"Schoholev has been detained until October 20. He was arrested on August 20. He has already been declared a suspect. Now that more details have emerged in the inquiry, he is also treated as a suspected accomplice in the killing of activists on Maidan Square," the victims' lawyer Pavlo Dykan told Interfax on Friday.

He said that Shcoholev was directly in charge of an anti-terrorist operation that began on February 18, 2014.

It was reported that on March 6 the Pechersky Court had placed Shcoholev under house arrest. "The main investigative directorate of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has notified a former chief of the Ukrainian Security Service [SBU], his ex-deputy, the head of the SBU Anti-terrorist Center, and a former head of the SBU Main Directorate for Kyiv city and the Kyiv region, that they are being treated as suspects in a crime as per Article 365 part three of the Ukrainian Criminal Code [exceeding authority and abuse of office, resulting in grave consequences]," a spokesperson for the Prosecutor General's Office said.

It was reported that between January 9, 2013 and February 22, 2014, the SBU was led by Oleksandr Yakymenko. Shcoholev, a native of Donetsk, had led the SBU's Kyiv office from April 2013. In March 2013, the country's ex-president Viktor Yanukovych merged the SBU Kyiv city and Kyiv regional offices into one.

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