First killings on Maidan: investigation of Interior Ministry employees armed with Fort-500 rifles continues

This was reported in a commentary to Ukrinform by ha Pavlyuk, an investigator with the State Bureau of Investigation for Maidan, and prosecutor Lyudmyla Havrysh, who is in charge of the procedural guidance in these cases.

“The investigation continues to work with the Interior Ministry employees who were on duty on the day of the murders. A number of forensic examinations are still underway, and witnesses are being interviewed,” Havrysh said.

“Law enforcement officers who were in the places of the murders, including those armed with firearms – smooth-bore pump-action shotguns of the Fort-500 model range – are constantly being worked out,” said investigator Pavlyuk.

She noted that the investigation of the first murders on Maidan is complicated by the fact that they were committed in conditions of uncertainty, lack of high-quality video recordings of the moment of the crimes, as well as direct witnesses.

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“At present, interrogations of persons who may have important information for the investigation continue, and investigative actions with their participation are ongoing. Expert institutions are conducting forensic and comprehensive forensic examinations, including the identification of weapons that could confirm the invvement of direct perpetrators in the murders of Nigoyan, Senyk and Zhyznevsky,” Pavlyuk said.

According to her, new circumstances of the first murders on Maidan are still being established and require additional verification.

Pavlyuk also reminded that the organizers of the first Maidan killings – former President Viktor Yanukovych, former Interior Minister Vital Zakharchenko and his deputy, as well as the heads of the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kyiv – have already been served with suspicion notices.

As reported, SBI (State Bureau of Investigation) investigators have established that Yur Verbytskyi was the first to be killed during the Revution of Dignity, and not Serh Nigoyan, as previously believed. Verbytskyi's murder has been fully sved.

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Serh Nigoyan died on January 22, 2014, from a lead pellet wound during the events near the Dynamo Stadium on Hrushevskoho Street. Serh was shot at around six in the morning, when a truce between the protesters and the Berkut was still in effect.

Belarusian Mikhail Zhyznevsky died on January 22, 2014, at about 9 a.m. from a shot in the heart with a hunting bullet near the Dynamo stadium on Hrushevskoho Street during Euromaidan.

Roman Senyk was wounded on January 22, 2014, near the Dynamo Stadium on Hrushevskoho Street during the Euromaidan, when he was standing with a flag at the front line. A sniper shot him in the lung and inflicted a severe wound to his shoulder with a special-purpose armor-piercing bullet. Roman underwent several surgeries at Kyiv City Clinical Hospital #17, lost a lot of blood, and had to have his arm amputated. However, the injuries were too severe, and on the morning of January 25, he died in the hospital without regaining consciousness.