“Impunity kills!” Sergiy Tomilenko on case of beating journalist Yevhen Polozhii

Ten years have passed since the brutal beating of the well-known writer and journalist from Sumy, Yevhen Polozhii. He was brutally beaten on April 15, 2014, in his own garage. They punched his head and broke his arm at the elbow.

The journalist connects the crime against him with a series of journalistic investigations published by the Panorama newspaper against persons who, at that time, controlled the city authorities in Sumy.

“I thought the worst thing happened to me that day. In fact, the worst started to happen later,” Yevhen Polozhii emphasizes in his post on Facebook.

“One year of investigation, nine years of trials. In fact, those who wanted to disable or kill me could be tried a couple of months after committing the crime,” the journalist wrote. “But one court did not grant permission to monitor mobile operators, another granted and permitted a search, but an employee was found in the court who informed the suspects. The police did everything to get rid of the evidence.”

In particular, the victim’s clothes with traces of blood and DNA samples of the criminals were removed and destroyed; the examination could not establish whose blood was on the floor, the protocols of simultaneous interrogations and materials of secret investigative actions were removed from the case. As a result, the criminals are still at large, the family is traumatized, the journalist’s friends are scared, and Sumy’s lawyers refuse to represent his interests.

“The first court issued an acquittal; the judge’s hands were shaking from fear. An appeal move was overturned. Now, the investigation into the case continues from the very beginning,” Yevhen Polozhii wrote, adding that this story is not only about him but also “about society, values and the price that everyone pays by themself, being alone with the system and criminals.”

Commenting on ten years of impunity for the offenders of his colleague, the President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), Sergiy Tomilenko, said that the NUJU would include his case in the list of high-profile crimes of the past years, which the parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech requests to be kept under control.

“Impunity kills! Journalists can only be protected by precedents of punishment for crimes against journalists and the media. Not trials, not investigations and examinations, but verdicts and punishments,” emphasized Sergiy Tomilenko.

NUJU Information Service