{"id":129504,"date":"2020-11-06T20:09:29","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T18:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/?p=129504"},"modified":"2020-11-06T20:09:32","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T18:09:32","slug":"italian-court-acquits-markiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/italian-court-acquits-markiv","title":{"rendered":"\u201cJustice always wins\u201d: Italian court acquits Ukraine\u2019s National Guardsman Markiv"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This\nweek, Ukrainians awaited with bated breath the ruling of the Milan Court of\nAppeal that was considering the case of the Ukrainian National Guardsman Vitaliy\nMarkiv. Markiv has dual Ukrainian-Italian citizenship. In July 2019, the court\nof first instance in Pavia, Italy convicted him of involvement in the murder of\nItalian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli and his interpreter, Russian human\nrights defender Andrey Mironov. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison. On\nNovember 3, 2020, the Milan Court of Appeal acquitted Markiv. He was\nimmediately released from custody, the next day he returned in Ukraine. We take\na look back at Markiv\u2019s case, highlighting why the justice restored is\nimportant for Ukraine.   <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vitaliy Markiv (born in 1989) moved to Italy in\n2003 with his mother and sister. He graduated from a technical college and\nacquired Italian citizenship. He worked as a DJ. Markiv returned in Ukraine in\nDecember 2013, during Euromaidan. He actively took part in the protest, and later\nenrolled in the National Guard of Ukraine, where he served in the General\nKulchytskyi battalion. In spring and summer 2014, his unit was deployed near\nSloviansk. Markiv\u2019s participation in the combat actions became a pretext for\nhis arrest in Italy: he was charged in the murder case of Italian\nphotojournalist Rocchelli.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was Markiv accused of? Why was he charged? <\/strong>Vitaliy\nMarkiv was arrested upon his arrival in Bologna, on June 30, 2017. From then he\nwas held in custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nindictment was based on the testimony of two key witnesses: French photographer\nWilliam Roguelon, a survivor of the attack, and Italian freelance journalist\nIlaria Morani, whose piece published in \u201cCorriere della Sera\u201d newspaper was\nseen as evidence of Markiv\u2019s involvement. Still, credibility of their testimony\nwas doubted on a variety of occasions. Thus, Roguelon changed his testimony\nseveral times, while Morani, when speaking in court, failed to prove that her\nconversation with Markiv (in which he allegedly \u201cconfessed\u201d) quoted in her\narticle, actually happened.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nprosecution claimed that on May 24, 2014, Vitaliy Markiv, a National Guard \u201ccommander\u201d\nwas involved in 30 mortar rounds fired upon the foot of the Karachun hill,\nwhere the journalists were staying. According to the prosecution, he passed the\ninformation on journalists\u2019 location to the Ukrainian troops that allegedly\nfired upon them from mortars. In the attack, Andrea Rocchelli and his fixer\nAndrey Mironov were killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plaintiffs in court were Rocchelli\u2019s family,\nthe Italian National Press Federation (FNSI), Journalists\u2019 Union in Lombardy (ALG),\nand \u201cCesura Lab\u201d organization founded by Rocchelli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Markiv did not deny that on May 25, 2014, when\nthe journalistic crew was killed, he was with his battalion on the hill\nKarachun. Markiv\u2019s tablet, seized from him upon arrest, had dozens of photos\nmade from the hill. The prosecution decided that some of the pictures recorded\nhis permanent combat position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\nthere, the investigators concluded, the site where the journalists came under\nattack was visible. Initially, Italian media reported that Markiv was charged\nover a mortar attack that he and his battalion made upon the ravine. Later, after\nthe National Guard presented evidence that mortars were not in service with\nthem at the time, the version of the events was amended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsentence of the first-instance court states that Markiv while watching a sector\nnear the foot of the Karachun hill, saw unarmed reporters and fired upon them from\nthe rifle, later, he directed the mortar fire by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role of Russia\u2019s propaganda in Markiv\u2019s guilty\nverdict. <\/strong>Ukrainian\njournalist Olha Tokariuk, who has been covering the Markiv case since its onset\nand is a co-author of the \u201cCrossfire\u201d documentary about the case, is convinced\nthat a number of facts point at the trace of Russia\u2019s propaganda in Italy that\ncontributed to the atmosphere around the case, in which the sentence was made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly,\na lot of paragraphs in investigation documents seem to be copied from Russia\u2019s\npropaganda materials. Thus, Markiv was called a \u201cmilitant from an illegal group\u201d,\nwhile the Ukrainian Army was presented as chaotic and incompetent. Ukraine was\naccused of the lack of will to cooperate over Rocchelli\u2019s death case (in part,\nthose accusations are true \u2013 Ukraine failed to hold a thorough investigation\nimmediately in 2014-2015. It kept sending invitations to hold a joint\ninvestigation after Markiv\u2019s arrest, but Italy ignored those invitations.) The\nprosecutors also referred to pieces from websites of Russia\u2019s propaganda and\nthose of Russia\u2019s proxies (for example \u201cRusskaya Vesna\u201d) as evidence in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides,\nthe coverage of the case by Italian media was often one-sided: they only covered\nthe position of the prosecution. It shaped the public opinion seeing Ukrainians\nas dangerous radical right, and Markiv as a merciless murderer.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia\u2019s\npropaganda had ground for these manipulations well-prepared, as its\naffirmations on \u201cthe civil war\u201d in Donbas, \u201cNazi-led\u201d Ukraine and \u201cthe coup\u201d in\nMaidan were broadly distributed by Italian media since 2014. The distorted picture\ncould have affected the jury\u2019s decision.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arguments of the defense. <\/strong>Markiv\u2019s\ndefense insisted that the charges are absurd and no real evidence is in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides,\na surprisingly severe sentence issued by the court in 2019, saw Ukraine\u2019s\nMinister of Interior Arsen Avakov actively engage in the case. The National\nGuard, where Markiv served, is part of the Ministry of Interior.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Markiv\u2019s defense and Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of\nInterior insisted that as of May 2014, the units of the National Guard were\nprovided with light weapons only, and that was not possible for Vitaliy Markiv to\n\u201ccommand\u201d a mortar unit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following dozens of interrogations and\nexaminations that Ukrainian investigators made, in August 2020, the Minister\nsaid that Ukraine\u2019s law enforcement got evidence of Markiv\u2019s innocence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviews\nof the National Guardsmen who served together with Markiv, allowed to locate the\nprecise position of the defendant. It was 1,760 meters away from the site where\nthe journalistic crew was killed, meaning that precision fire from a\nKalashnikov rifle that Markiv had at the time, was not possible from his\nposition. Besides, the ravine could not be seen from the position.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukrainian\npolicemen reported they found a guy, who possibly jumped into the ravine\ntogether with the journalists and the taxi driver. He is a local, he said that\nthe first series of shots on May 24, 2014 were fired not from Karachun, but\nfrom the side of the \u201cZeus\u201d factory controlled by the militants at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investigators\nanalyzed the audio that Rocchelli made minutes before his death. They found\nthat the shots were fired not from the 500-meter distance, where the Ukrainian\ntroops were stationed, but from 200 to 300-meter distance to the \u201cZeus\u201d factory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acquittal,\nrelease from custody, and return in Ukraine. <\/strong>The appeal was considered\nby the Milan Court of Appeal. Markiv was acquitted on November 3, he was back\nin Ukraine on November 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon\nhis release, Markiv said that the day marks the paramount victory over the insidious\npropaganda \u201cthat not only aimed at compromising Ukraine\u2019s integrity, dignity,\nand honor, but targeted the Ukrainian nation as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\ncannot believe that. I was preparing myself for the worst scenario while hoping\nfor the best. My sole wish and hope was for the Italian court to stay on the\njust side,\u201d Markiv told \u201cRadio Liberty\u201d moments after release from custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nthanked all who supported him in jail, he also confessed that he is not angry\nat Italians, as not all of them agreed with the court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly,\nhis attitude to journalists did not get worse, even though his case gained pace\ndue to an article. \u201cI purposefully avoid naming the person who wrote an article\nabout me. But there were both Ukrainian and foreign journalists, who write the\ntruth. They got curious: if he is \u2018journalists\u2019 ardent foe\u2019, as he is\npresented, why are the facts in discordance with that?\u201d Markiv proceeds.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vitaliy\nMarkiv added that he plans to continue military service and sees his future in\nUkraine. \u201cI promised myself to stay strong for the heroes who sacrificed their\nlives and those who are fighting for the independence,\u201d he added.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nsaid, together with the lawyers he is considering a possibility of claiming compensation\nfrom those responsible for his three years in custody, those who \u201cwere trying\nto compromise\u201d not just the National Guard, but entire Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, Ukrainians awaited with bated breath the ruling of the Milan Court of Appeal that was considering the case of the Ukrainian National Guardsman Vitaliy Markiv. Markiv has dual Ukrainian-Italian citizenship. In July 2019, the court of first instance in Pavia, Italy convicted him of involvement in the murder of Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli […] More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":129505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[611],"tags":[3546],"section":[743,743],"form":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cJustice always wins\u201d: Italian court acquits Ukraine\u2019s National Guardsman Markiv | UACRISIS.ORG<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, Ukrainians awaited with bated breath the ruling of the Milan Court of Appeal that was considering the case of the Ukrainian National Guardsman | Uacrisis.org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/italian-court-acquits-markiv\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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