Ukraine's Poroshenko & Co. Get 'Judge Judy' Treatment From Separatist 'Tribunal'
By Christopher Miller
KYIV – The court's verdict was unanimous and harsh: Ukraine's top leaders, including President Petro Poroshenko, were guilty of war crimes. Their punishment: life imprisonment and the confiscation of their personal property.
But the sentence is highly unlikely to be seen -- much less recognized -- by most people and even less likely to be carried out, since this so-called court is a product of a Russia-backed separatist group in war-torn eastern Ukraine that calls itself the Luhansk People's Republic. It's known simply by its Russian acronym, the LNR, and is viewed as illegitimate by the vast majority of the world.
As far as reality shows go, the LNR's months-long "Ukrainian People's Tribunal" -- which handed down the "sentences" in absentia after hundreds of "witness hearings" and more than 1,089 volumes of material, including video footage showing several real instances of shelling in residential areas on June 22 -- might fall somewhere between a high-school class project and a Judge Judy rip-off for a local public-access TV channel.
In an attempt to inject a dose of authenticity, the "tribunal," aired during dinnertime and promoted with a logo showing Lady Justice, claimed to have based the case on Ukraine's own criminal code.
Arguing for the "state" was the "people's prosecutor," Serhiy Kozhyemyakhin, who spent much of his time looking down and reading from prepared remarks during the televised hearings.
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Crimea activist expected to be released after court suspends sentence:
By the Crimean Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
A jailed Ukrainian activist is expected to be released after a court in Russian-controlled Crimea shortened and suspended his politically charged prison sentence.
A court in Sevastopol ruled on June 26 that Ihor Movenko's two-year prison sentence must be replaced by a one-year suspended sentence.
Movenko's lawyer, Oksana Zheleznyak, said she expected he will be released on June 27.
In early May, Movenko was convicted of promoting extremism and sentenced to two years in prison.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry protested the verdict and said it would work to secure Movenko's release.
Critics accuse the Russian authorities of fabricating charges against Ukrainian citizens as a reprisal for their opposition to Moscow's takeover of the Black Sea peninsula.
Russia seized Crimea in March 2014 after sending in troops, taking over key facilities, and staging a referendum deemed illegitimate by at least 100 countries in the United Nations.
The takeover of Crimea and Russian support for separatists in eastern Ukraine prompted the United States, the European Union, and others to impose targeted sanctions against selected Russian individuals and companies.