Volodymyr Toponar, the pilot of the Su-27 plane that crashed late in July this year during the air show at the Sknyliv Airfield in Lviv, will stay in the local prison’s isolation facility until December 9. According to Oleksandr Yaremenko, judge of Lviv garrison military tribunal, in case the General Office of the Public Prosecutor makes a request to prolong his arrest, Toponar will have to spend another two months in the SIZO (isolation facility). Still, the pilot’s lawyer Olena Ivashchuk believes it to be inappropriate that her client is held under arrest: Toponar did not try to evade custody, testified whenever needed, the pilot’s state of health does not allow him to stay in the SIZO. Still the Western Regional Court of Appeal has not allowed her appeal against the decision of Lviv garrison military tribunal. Meanwhile, Valentyna, the wife of Yury Yatsiuk, deputy chief flight operations officer who has been kept under arrest for more than three months, has begun a hunger strike after the Lviv military tribunal’s sitting on Yatsiuk’s further fate filed to take place. Illness of one of the court representatives is said to be the reason. “The Office of Public Prosecutor is tormenting my family,” Valentyna Yatsiuk explained motives of her hunger strike, “and keeps my husband in the SIZO for no good reason.” The pilot’s lawyer Vitaly Domashovets also blames the Office of the Public Prosecutor for absurd reasoning in keeping him under arrest. In particular, according to the jurist, the report of the Public Prosecutor’s Office states that the consequences of the crash, age, state of health, marital status, and moral status of the accused, as well as his perfect certificate of service would help Yatsiuk to negatively influence the investigation process, and for this reason he is to stay in the isolator until April 29, 2003. Simultaneously, Serhiy Onyshchenko, former commander of the XIV Air Corps, has been released from custody and signed a written pledge not to leave the area. But, according to Vitaly Domashovets, he is proceeding with his service in Vinnytsia. This also seems strange to the advocate that former Commander-in-Chief of the Air Forces of Ukraine Viktor Strelnikov has shifted from the category of accused to that of witnesses. Meanwhile Anatoly Tretiakov, chief flight operations officer of the Sknyliv airfield, is still held in custody.
