The Kyiv Court of Appeal has ordered further investigation in the criminal prosecution of two police officers charged of involvement in the death of Ihor Indylo in the Shevchenkivsky Police Station in Kyiv in May 2010.

Monday by Judge Mykola Yashchenko who thus allowed the application of Ihor’s parents and their lawyer. They were appealing against the rulings handed down in early January by the Desnyansky District Court in Kyiv

The cases against officers Serhiy Prykhodko and Serhiy Kovalenko will receive further investigation. The court on Monday also cancelled the previous courts rulings. 

As reported, neither of the two men was charged with causing the death of Ihor Indylo, a young, perfectly healthy, student who died police custody during the early hours of 18 May 2010, the day that he should have celebrated his twentieth birthday. 

Serhiy Kovalenko had been charged with not checking the grounds for detaining Ihor Indylo and was amnestied at the end of last year.

A week later, on 5 January 2012 Judge Oleksy Panasyk in the Desnyansky District Court in Kyiv convicted Serhiy Prykhodko was convicted only of unwarrantedly detaining the young student and dragging him by force into the cell.  He received a five year suspended sentence.  Throughout the trial Prykhodko had continued to work in the same police force, and had over that period been promoted.

Both men are still at liberty under a written undertaking not to leave the city.

Neither the court nor the Prosecutor established what had led to the serious injury which caused Ihor’s death

Ihor Indylo died in police custody on the night from 17 to 18 May 2010.  He had committed no offence and went voluntarily to the police station, with the CCTV footage showing him entering the station looking perfectly healthy and not, as the police claimed, in a state of extreme inebriation.  Prykhodko was living in the same hostel, and there would seem to have been an altercation. 

He died from head injuries and haemorrhaging.  After a report on the TV 1 + 1 Channel, the story became high-profile, and the police assertion Ihor had fallen from a bunk in a state of inebriation was insultingly unconvincing.  There were a considerable number of such unconvincing details which were never fully investigated.

Because of the publicity, a criminal investigation was initiated back in 2010 and in November the Kyiv Prosecutor’s Office announced that it was handing the case to the court.

In spring of 2011 Judge Margarita Vasylyeva ruled that the Prosecutor had not established the cause of Ihor’s death and sent the case for further examination. The Prosecutor, however, succeeded in getting that ruling revoked.

There has been considerable protest in Ukraine over this case, and Amnesty International has also demanded a proper investigation.