On September 12 the next hearing of the case of Olaolu Femi took place. Olaolu is threatened by life imprisonment for just defending his unconscious friend’s and his own life from three young aggressive people. The case showed progress. Once „injured“ started to evidence, the nonsense of imputation became obvious. Evidence of young people who sort of suffered from African’s attack changed several times during pre-trial investigation and again in the court room. The next hearing is appointed for 10:00 on September 28 and is expected to be even more interesting: questioning of the “injured” and of the accused will take place.

On Wednesday, September 12, in Leninskyi District Court of Lugansk conduct of hearing of Nigerian student Olaolu Sunkanmi Femi continued. He is accused of attempted murder, for wounding three people with broken bottle’s neck in order to defend himself.

Before the hearing started, odious “Lugantsi” public organization had picketed the court to support the “injured”. Five people were holding banners with spelling mistakes, state flags and a stick with a noose tied to it. For half an hour they were demanding death penalty for Olaolu Femi. The head of the organization Serhii Kovalenko was asked if he was aware of the crime situation, he said he had no time to go deep into the details. He thought that the main point was to protect the interests of Ukrainians. “Lugantsi” don’t see any connection between the attack of five young men upon the Nigerian and their last year actions: picketing the dormitories for foreign students and beating the effigy of the “doner kebab seller”.

During the hearing that lasted for more than 2 hours, only Vitalii Haman and Artem Loboda witnessed. Other two “injured” weren’t even present at the court. According to the words of Iryna Pashkova’s mother, she was in hospital with nervous breakdown caused by the process. The reason of Dmytro Lemenchuk’s absence was unknown.

Both “injured” admitted that on that evening they all had drunk alcohol (which was confirmed by the results of examination) although they affirmed having been sober. They stated Dmytro Lemenchuk had followed Nigerian guys into the porch where fight took place. Later he had gone out crying for help, so Vitaliy and Artem had run into the entrance. “Injured” asserted that they had seen cut on the Lemenchuk’s cheek despite the lack of light and the distance of about 20 meters. Notwithstanding the two previous explanations Vitalii Haman declared that immediately after entering the porch he had been hit on his head and he vaguely remembered the following events. Herewith in some strange way he had been able to see the African armed with the neck of broken bottle, before the bottle was broken against his head.

Vitalii Haman, who works as security officer at the private security service, kept emphasizing excellent physical condition and incredible force of Olaolu. He failed to explain the absence of marks of the gunshot wound announced by the prosecution. Vitalii Haman recanted his statements that had been read out on demand of the lawyer Liudmyla Havrysh, which had been previously fixed in two examination records during the pre-trial inquiry. He explained it with heving been in the state of shock and suffering from the head injury. According to his words, he had recovered only a month ago. While answering the lawyer’s questions, Vitalii kept glancing back at his mother in the courtroom. At one of the most difficult moments for Vitalii, his mother even succeeded to pass him a note with a tip.

It looked like the prosecutor felt uncomfortable in this situation. He tried his best to ask the “injured” the right questions in order to get necessary evidence. It wasn’t easy. Artem Loboda was also talking about exited and cheery Africans who had come in the porch just before Lemenchuk did. According to his words, he saw Lemenchuk who had run out of the entrance and cried for their help and after that he followed Lemenchuk and Haman into the porch. He saw Haman was thumped once with a bottle and Pashkova that was also injured (The girl was on the bench at that time according to Haman’s version). Artem failed to explain to the lawyers how he with Haman were going to help “wounded” Lemenchuk in the porch and why he hadn’t called police or ambulance.

According to his words, he didn’t see who had torn the bag and ripped off the jacket collar of Olaolu Femi. He assumed that the collar had been ripped off outside in front of the porch while he had been trying to pull away Olaolu from Haman, who was lying on the ground. But he failed to explain why the collar had been found in the porch. After he was asked where he had got the stuff of Vitalii that was given to the police examination, he confidently answered that he had taken it from Haman’s house. Vitalii’s mother cried from her seat that he had taken it from the hospital. Condoling judges even didn’t reprove her breach of the procedure.

The lawyer Havrysh pointed that Loboda’s evidence contradicts what had ben evidenced before and asked to read out transcript of questioning. But the interpreter said that she was tired and asked to finish the questioning. That was the end of the session. The “injured” got more time to “work on the mistakes”.

In addition, the “injured” and their parents, talking with the journalists, disproved their participation in writing open letter, which was spread a day before. Set of events in the letter does not coincide with any of 4 evidence versions which were voiced in the court on Wednesday. The author and aim of this provocation stay unclear. The “injured” don’t want to communicate with media and act aggressively, so their mothers took all the initiatives.

Initiative “Justice for Olaolu”

Initiative "Justice for Olaolu" is an association of non-governmental organizations and individuals who are anxious about criminal persecution of Olaolu Sunkanmi Femi, which has signs to be fabricated and biased. The initiative is created to collect and distribute information about the progress of his case, defending Olaolu’s right for fair justice.

Contacts of Initiative "Justice for Olaolu": Tel.: +380 50 8106649 (Julia) (Ukrainian, Russian)

+380 50 3348780 (Maksym) (Eng., Ukr., Rus.).

E-mail: [email protected];

[email protected]