Andriy Domansky, the lawyer of jailed RIA Novosti Ukraine portal head Kirill Vyshinsky, told Sputnik on Tuesday that he was not ruling out the possibility of being detained upon his return to Ukraine from Brussels
BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd April, 2019) Andriy Domansky, the lawyer of jailed RIA Novosti Ukraine portal head Kirill Vyshinsky, told Sputnik on Tuesday that he was not ruling out the possibility of being detained upon his return to Ukraine from Brussels.
Domansky has come to the Belgian capital to participate in an expert conference on the results of the first round of the Ukrainian presidential election. The conference was held on Monday, one day after the election, in which Volodymyr Zelenskiy and President Petro Poroshenko secured the top two spots, according to preliminary results given after 95 percent of ballots were counted.
"I know that after my public announcement that I will address all these issues here [in Brussels], the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine initiated a plan to hand me a notice on April 2 saying that I am suspected of committing some kind of crime. I cannot understand which one, but this is most likely related to the searches that were carried out at my place," Domansky told Sputnik.
Ukrainian security services carried out searches in Domansky's apartment and office in mid-January. Since they seized nothing, the lawyer speculated that these raids were meant to demoralize him.
Domansky also suggested that the Office of the Prosecutor General was trying to discourage him from returning to Ukraine.
"They are very much afraid of my presence at the court hearing [on the Vyshinsky case] on April 4," Domansky added.
Vyshinsky was detained in Kiev last May on suspicion of treason and supporting the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics. In February, the Kherson city court extended the journalist's arrest until April 8. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Vyshinsky's arrest is politically motivated and demonstrates Ukrainian authorities' unacceptable policy of targeting journalists doing their jobs.
