Kiev claimed Monday August 31st that it had evidence of the innocence of a Ukrainian veteran sentenced to 24 years in prison in Italy for the deaths of two photographers in the war in Ukraine. " We hope that the Milan Court of Appeal will examine this case impartially, " Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told a press conference, with a second trial scheduled for late September.
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Italian-Ukrainian Vitaly Markiv, a former commander of the Ukrainian National Guard, was sentenced last year for the deaths of two photographers, Italian Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian colleague Andrey Mironov, in bombings in 2014 in the armed conflict between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Described as " political " by many in Ukraine, this verdict was pronounced by the Assize Court in Pavia (North), Rocchelli's hometown. " Markiv was deprived of the right to defend himself, " accused Minister Avakov. “ No representative of the Italian law enforcement agencies has even visited Ukraine. Any impartial expert would have seen on the spot that it was impossible ”, he added, assuring that the Ukrainian investigators had found witnesses and carried out expertises proving the innocence of Mr. Markiv.
The two photographers had been killed by mortar fire as they covered the fighting. According to Mr. Avakov, the accused was armed only with a Kalashnikov and too far from the facts to be responsible for it. Considered a hero in Ukraine, Vitaly Markiv was arrested in June 2017 at Bologna airport, when he got off a plane. The war with the separatists, of whom Moscow is widely regarded as the political and military godfather, has killed more than 13,000 people in Ukraine in six years.
