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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

What Will the President Do?

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

By Valery KOSTIUKEVYCH, The Day
The Zhytomyr oblast court has passed verdict in the cases of Anatoly Onopriyenko
and Serhiy Rohozin, his accomplice in the first three crimes.

The court found Onopriyenko guilty of 52 murders in the first degree,
among his victims 10 children and 4 elderly, stressing that each act was
committed for mercenary motives and with special cruelty. He was also found
guilty of first raping and then killing women, of attempted murders, theft
of and damage to individual and public property, unlawful storage and transportation
of firearms, organization of a gang, etc. The court further admonished
that the defendant was fully conscious of his conduct and capable of controlling
it.

Proceeding from all this, reads the verdict, Onopriyenko constitutes
a grave danger to society and the state, even in conditions of strict confinement,
and is thus sentenced to the capital punishment, death by firing squad.

Serhiy Rohozin was found guilty of being a member of Onopriyenko's armed
gang which assaulted people to appropriate their property and received
up to 13 years of strict regime imprisonment.

Onopriyenko's defense counsel stated he will appeal the Zhytomyr court's
verdict and if the Supreme Court sustains it, he and his client will address
the President.

If Mr. Kuchma receives this petition he will find himself between Scylla
and Charybdis. On the one hand, the Council of Europe is to return to the
issue of Ukraine's commitments, including the abolition of capital punishment
this June. From the standpoint of normal relationships with Europe, the
President ought to commute Onopriyenko's sentence (like Oleksandr Hlek
recently sentenced to death by Odesa Regional Court for murdering Anatoly
Derevyanko, editor of Vecherniaya Odessa).

On the other hand, there is the election campaign and pardoning Onopriyenko
may cost the President a lot of votes, for most people want the killer
dead.

In other words, the President faces a dilemma: act as per European norms
or play by the rules of the election game. Either choice has its price.

 

Serial murderer Anatoly Onopriyenko was sentenced to death and only the President can commute the sentence
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