RPT: Repeated Court Hearing Postponements For Vyshinsky Resemble Assange Case - NGO

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published July 18, 2019 | 10:30 AM

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th July, 2019) RIA Novosti Ukraine portal head Kirill Vyshinsky's dragged-out treason case initiated by Kiev resembles the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in its lack of real substance, Marcello Ferrada de Noli, the founder and chairman of Swedish Doctors for Human Rights (SWEDHR), told Sputnik.

Vyshinsky was detained on May 15, 2018, on suspicion of supporting the self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and treason. The harshest sentence the journalist might face is 15 years in prison. On Monday, the Podolsky district court of Kiev yet again postponed the court hearing until July 19.

"If the prosecutors would have any base for the case to be taken to court, Vyshinsky would have already been on trial. In this sense, that situation resembles very much the Assange case in Sweden. Also a political case where journalist fact-based reports have challenged the authorities' narrative. And where because no legal grounds would exist to prosecute, the case has been postponed, investigations have been protracted on and on, and no trial has been set," Ferrada de Noli said.

SWEDHR's head stressed that the case had nothing in common with a legal system of independent justice and was used as "a hostage-case" by the administration of ex-President Petro Poroshenko to exercise pressure on Moscow in talks related to the situation in eastern Ukraine.

"The Swedish Doctors for Human Rights has appealed to the United Nations Working Group for Arbitrary detentions (UNGWAD) to investigate the arrest of Kirill Vyshinsky by the Ukrainian authorities. He should be immediately released," Ferrada de Noli said.

Asked about whether the course of the case could change ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections, SWEDHR's head said that possible positive developments in Vyshinsky's case could be used by the government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a tool to re-establish the damaged reputation of Ukraine's legal institutions.