Lawyer of Former Ukrainian Serviceman “Lost Faith in Italian Justice and State”

13 July 2019 12:25

The lawyer of the former Ukrainian soldier, Vitaliy Markiv – who was sentenced in Italy to 24 years in prison on July 12 – said “he had lost confidence in the Italian justice because the sentence is political.”

The lawyer Raffaele Della Valle said this in the aftermath of the court hearing, reports Hromadske journalist Olga Tokariuk.

"In a conversation with us, he said that throughout his 56-year career, he had not seen such an absurd sentence. He claims there are absolutely no grounds on which such a rigorous sentence is based. He even says that he is very disappointed with the actions of Italian judges and has lost confidence in Italian justice and even in the Italian state," the journalist informs.

Even the prosecutor in the case, Andrea Zanoncelli, was surprised by such a harsh sentence, as the prosecution requested 17 years of prison, not 24.

On July 12, the former National Guard serviceman Markiv, who was accused of involvement in the murder of an Italian photographer Andrea Rocchelli in the Donbas in 2014, was sentenced to 24 years in prison by the Italian court in the city of Pavia. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has already announced that the ruling would be challenged.

In his final remark, Markiv said that he was a Ukrainian military, a simple soldier, a patriot, and added that he would always defend Ukraine.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy also instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prosecutor General's Office to address urgently the issue of the return of the former serviceman.