Ukraine Police Charge 19 for Anti-Kuchma Violence

[mastodon]

Ukraine's SBU security service reported on Wednesday that 19 people were charged for their part in the violence during a mass demonstration in the capital Kiev in March.

A spokesman for the SBU, successor to the former Soviet state's KGB, said they were charged with "organising and taking an active part in mass disturbances which had grave consequences". If convicted they could be jailed for 12 years.

Two months of street marches against President Leonid Kuchma turned violent on March 9 when riot police and protesters fought a pitched battle outside the presidential administration. Scores of demonstrators and several police officers were injured.

Some 10,000 marchers, a loose coalition of anti-Kuchma opposition parties, students and, ordinary citizens were demanding Kuchma quit over alleged links to the murder of a journalist, Georgiy Gongadze. The president denies the allegations.

Over 200 people were rounded up by police after the march, many from the radical nationalist Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self-Defence group UNA-UNSO. Most were released after paying fines.

The march brought the first serious violence in anti-Kuchma protests following the release of audio tapes on which a voice similar to the president's was heard ordering officials to deal with the reporter Gongadze.

The demonstration by some 10,000 people fueled a political crisis which culminated in the ousting of prime minister Viktor Yushchenko and his government. Up to 15,000 people marched in a subsequent protest, but the demonstrations have since dwindled. A new government under Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh has been formed.
//Reuters