Did Trump Ex-Adviser Paul Manafort Play a Role in 2014 Ukraine Massacre?
As the court in Kiev puts police on trial for the Maidan slaughter, the big question is who ordered the killing.
Anna Nemtsova
03.15.17 9:06 PM ET
KIEV — Yevgenia Zakrevskaya, an attorney here in the Ukrainian capital, is one of the strongest liberal voices in the country, fighting hard for democratic values and the rule of law. Persistent, punctilious, and stubborn, the 36-year-old Zakrevskaya has pieced together a mosaic of evidence proving that the entire Ukraine state system from top to bottom was responsible for the tragic events in February 2014 when more than 100 protesters were killed in the streets of Kiev.
Representing 20 victims and their family members, Zakrevskaya wants to send a strong message to Moscow and Washington, as well as to all Ukrainian officials: everyone complicit in ordering the mass murder of unarmed protesters in Maidan Square must be prosecuted and punished, even if it takes years—and even if the list of suspects comes to include people like former Donald Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort or, indeed, people protected by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Right now, Ukraine is watching the historic public trial of five former Kiev policemen. The men in the dock are members of “the Black Unit,” Kiev’s feared Berkut police, suspected of murdering 48 people and injuring up to 80 participants in the Maidan revolution on Feb. 20, 2014.
For three years Zakrevskaya has been collecting photo and video evidence, as well as physical evidence such as bullets and shells from around the square to prove not only that this police unit fired at the protesters but that they did so under orders.
The bullets Zakrevskaya, her colleagues and clients have discovered are not made of plastic; the video footage depicted men in uniforms shooting guns at protesters in Kiev.
“This trial could be compared to the Bloody Sunday trial in Ireland or to the court hearing against the murderers of protesters in Lithuania in 1991,” Zakrevskaya tells The Daily Beast.
Many in Ukraine believe that former President Yanukovych was responsible for ordering the mass murder of Maidan revolutionaries and that the entire system of power has to be cleansed and reformed.
Others say that it is enough to see a few policemen on trial, that the law enforcement agencies should not go after all officials on all levels, even if some involved in suppressing the revolutionary movement might be still working in Ukraine’s state institutions.
Zakrevskaya insists that all witnesses deserve attention. It’s in that context that the name of Paul Manafort comes up, since the American political operator was an advisor both for Yanukovych and eventually U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, Zakrevskaya told The Daily Beast.
Beginning in 2005, Manafort was advising Yanukovych and his Russia-backed Party of Regions as well as the party’s biggest sponsor, Ukrainian oligarch Renat Akhmetov.Even after the violent events of February 2014 and Yanukovych’s shameful escape to Russia, Manafort returned to Ukraine to reshape the former ruling Party of Regions into the Oppo Bloc.
Manafort’s tenure as Trump’s campaign chief ended after reports last summer that he received millions of dollars in cash payments, allegedly stolen from Ukrainian tax payers.
It’s been reported as well that Manafort’s daughters felt concerned about their father’s interactions with former President Yanukovych.
What appear to be hacked text messages among Manafort’s daughters include this sinister judgment by Andrea Manafort: “Don’t fool yourself. That money we have is blood money.”
Manafort has not yet responded to queries from The Daily Beast about the allegations in Ukraine or his daugthers’ alleged text messages.
The key question for Ukraine is whether Manafort was advising Yanukovych during the days of violence in late February 2014, at precisely the time when the Berkut police fired machine guns at unarmed people on Kiev’s Independence Square.
“Both Manafort’s daughters and U.S. law enforcement institutions should help us find out the truth, as this trial is a lesson for the entire world today,” says Zakrevskaya.
Yanukovych is exiled in Russia, but in November, Zakrevskaya had a chance to him about the killings, via videoconference. “The former president said that it was not police but some ‘radicals’ who had shot people dead in Kiev, ” Zakrevskaya said.
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/15/did-trump-ex-advisor-manafort-play-a-role-in-2014-ukraine-massacre.html?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
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