Transitions Online 13 January, 2015
Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has been placed on Interpol’s wanted list, the BBC reports, on accusations of defrauding the Ukrainian people of millions of dollars in public funds.
A red notice for Yanukovych appeared on Interpol's website on 12 January, the BBC reports, which means that Interpol is prepared to work with Ukraine in “identifying and locating” him with a view to his “arrest and extradition or similar lawful action.”
A similar Interpol directive has been issued against other former senior officials, including former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on charges of embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds.
The red notice is not an arrest warrant and “does not compel any nation to take him into custody,” The New York Times notes.
The fact that the charges listed on the red notice are “limited to his alleged pilfering of state funds” suggest that Ukrainian authorities have not made “a convincing case” for their charge that he was behind the shooting deaths by security forces last February of more than 100 protesters, the Kyiv Post writes.
In a separate development, Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France have abandoned plans for a summit this week on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Reuters reports, because of insufficient progress in implementing a four-month-old ceasefire agreement.
The countries’ foreign ministers said the failure to implement the truce effectively, combined with the need for a consensus on how to deliver aid and free prisoners, meant "further work needs to be done" before any new summit is held, Reuters reports.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine meanwhile has intensified, the Financial Times reports, with a heavy artillery attack near Donetsk reported overnight on 11 January.
Each side blames the other for the increased fighting, according to the FT, which quotes a Ukrainian military spokesman as saying that over the past four days at least eight soldiers have been killed in mortar and rocket attacks on army posts in Donetsk and Luhansk.
The BBC quotes a Ukrainian military statement as saying that a shell hit a bus in the east today, killing at least six civilians and wounding many more.
tol.org
Yanukovych placed on Interpol red notice list for suspected embezzlement
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