A court in Kiev puts journalist Ihor Guzhva on wanted list

On Feb 12, Kiev’s Shevchenko District Court put on the wanted list Editor-in-Chief of Strana.ua Ihor Guzhva, who is facing the charge of tax evasion.

“Guzhva has failed to appear in court and has to be found and detained,” the prosecutor said.

According to Guzhva’s lawyer Elena Klymenko, her client is undergoing medical treatment abroad and is going to come back to Ukraine on Feb 20. So, the court’s decision was premature.

As EADaily reported earlier, in early Feb 2018, Guzhva left for Austria, where he complained of being pressured by the authorities and asked for a political shelter.

Guzhva said that certain people were threatening him with violence and even murder. His departure from Ukraine was not illegal as he left the country only after the expiry of the period of the court’s pre-trial restrictions.

In order to have official grounds for detaining Guzhva, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine asked Kiev’s Shevchenko District Court to change the pre-trial restrictions.

Earlier Guzhva said that he did not trust Ukraine’s judiciary and had no hopes for justice. He claims that the charges laid against him were cooked up and aimed to force him to change the anti-regime policy of Strana.ua.

Guzhva said that in Austria he was collecting documents proving that the charges laid against him were cooked up and politically motivated.