On January 20th the Court of Justice of Milan issued the full documentation inherent to the verdict of acquittal of soldier V.Markiv, released on November 3rd 2020.These are the key points:
- the appeal court wholly reconfirm the dynamics of events and responsibilities of the double murder as reconstructed by the state prosecution in Pavia (p.63);
- the testimony delivered by French photographer William Roguelon is absolutely reliable and crucial to understand how things went, as well as those delivered by the other journalists interrogated in court during the I grade trial (pp. 40, 57, 59);
- the requests brought up by the defense (further ballistic tests and admission of the movie The Wrong Place) were rejected because deemed not relevant to the current matter (p.29, 30).
- a formal flaw was detected in one of the 1st grade court hearings: the soldiers who came to Pavia in June 2019 to testify in favor of Mr. Markiv were not correctly informed of the ritual formulas “right to silence” (right not to remain silent when asked) and “all statements can be used against their speaker in upcoming trials”. This flaw determines the complete invalidation of the soldiers’ declarations -nevertheless their content remains valid: Mr Markiv’s colleagues and officers actually strenghtend the thesis developed by the state prosecution concerning Markiv’s role and position on Karachun Hill (p.69).
- the sudden lack of those evidences as well as the lack of any picture or record catching the indicted in action on May 24th 2014 in that precise place hinder the court to rule a guilty verdict. Hence the acquittal for lack of evidences (p.69).
The documentation doesn’t exonerate the Ukrainian National Guard from the charges but rather denounces the deadly act of violence committed against unarmed journalists at work. These pages bring back an established truth that has been very often twisted and deformed within the past months in the name of a superficial yet ferocius campaign, both in Italy and abroad.