About 1,000 officers of the police and the National Guard of Ukraine have been engaged in maintaining law and order outside the Obolonsky district court building in Kyiv where the case of former members of the Tornado special patrol police squad is scheduled to be heard, the Kyiv police's media liaison office has reported.

The court hearings will be held behind closed doors, it said.

The Obolonsky court announced on its website on Monday that it would consider the Tornado case alone on Tuesday, putting aside other cases, as it anticipates possible disruptions of its work amid the Tornado hearings.

As was reported, eight people, including seven members of the Tornado special patrol police squad, were detained in Luhansk region in June 2015.

Kyiv's Obolonsky district court has been considering the Tornado case since the end of 2015.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced then that he had signed an order to disband the squad.

Tornado's former commander and members are accused of committing grave crimes.

Press secretary of Kyiv's Obolonsky district court Inna Svynarenko said that the court hearings were held behind closed doors as the suspects are accused of crimes against sexual freedom and personal inviolability.

On August 2, 2016, activists and members of some volunteer battalions blocked the exits of the Obolonsky district court, which was scheduled to consider the Tornado case on that day. Then there were clashes when men in the Tornado squad uniforms attempted to throw car tires, flour and bottles with water at police officers and guardsmen who cordoned the court's building while the court hearing was on behind closed doors. Someone tried to climb across the fence. Tear gas was sprayed on the site of the incident.

Chief of Kyiv's National Police Andriy Krishchenko later said that 15 guardsmen and 12 police officers had been poisoned by tear gas during the clashes. In his words, neither police nor the National Guard used the gas.

Later, the National Guard's press service confirmed that the National Guard had not used tear gas, but said that no one of the guardsmen had been poisoned.

On August 6, it was announced that three active participants in the clashes had been informed they were suspected of having committed a breach of public order as a group of people (Article 293 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

On August 9, the court postponed hearings due to the absence of a lawyer from the defense of one of the suspects.