On May 24, 2014, Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli and Russian human rights activist, journalist and interpreter Andrei Mironov were killed near then-occupied Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine. The friends and relatives of Andrei Mironov have been largely ignored by the Italian courts and today insist on taking part in the proceedings.
Open letter
Your Honour, Giovanna Ada Lucia Ichino! We, the undersigned, friends and relatives of Andrei Mironov, who was killed along with Andrea Rocchelli on May 24, 2014 in eastern Ukraine, near the city of Sloviansk, wish to address the court with the following statement. We learned about the start of the appeal hearings related to the killing of Andrea Rocchelli in Milan. However, we are very troubled by the fact that we have never been contacted regarding the decision to file an appeal, we did not receive any materials dealing with the investigation, could not familiarize ourselves with the materials of the case, and did not have the opportunity to participate as victims in the court proceedings. As relatives of the deceased, we insist on our right to appear and testify in court as the injured party and civil plaintiffs. Unfortunately, the Russian Investigative Committee did not take any steps to protect our rights, and therefore we appeal directly to Your Honour. In addition, we would like to share with the court and the investigation team all the information that we have gathered on this case. The brother of the deceased, Aleksandr Mironov, and the colleague of the deceased, Ekaterina Vorobiova (...) were in touch with Andrei Mironov on May 24, 2014, on the day of the tragedy. Aleksandr Mironov formulated a list of the most important issues that, in his opinion, were not considered during the court sessions. Please see Appendix 1. We kindly ask you to notify us of the upcoming hearing and we formally notify Your Honour that we are ready to take part in the proceedings. (...) We will be pleased to answer any follow-up questions. Yours faithfully, Aleksandr Mironov, brother of the deceased, Moscow; Ekaterina Vorobiova, colleague and close friend of the deceased, Novaya Gazeta, Moscow; Sofiya (Sophia) Kayes, niece of the deceased, Belarusian Free Theatre, London; Aleksandr Nagovitsyn, colleague and close friend of the deceased, film director, Yekaterinburg; Alla Onishchenko-Schlatte, close friend of the deceased, professor, Fairfield, USA.Appendix 1
On the absence of an objective investigation of circumstantial evidence in the killing of Andrea Rocchelli and Andrei Mironov.- During the autopsy, a yellow fragment was removed from my brother’s body. The shard was placed in a test tube and included in the initial investigation by the Ukrainian government in the summer and fall of 2014.
- The examination of the above-mentioned fragment carried out by the Ukrainian government did not establish a correlated type of ammunition used in the shooting. I believe that this points to either incompetence on the part of the experts, or disinterest in producing objective results.
- What other evidence did the Italian side find with regard to the aforementioned fragment?
- What evidence, if any, did the court find with regard to the shrapnel that wounded French photographer William Roguelon?
- What photos, video and sound recordings made by William Roguelon and Andrea Rocchelli were approved and examined by the court?
On October 20, Ukrainian journalist Olga Tokariuk, who co-authored the documentary Crossfire investigating the killing, published a thread on Twitter on the Markiv case. The original title of the film - The Wrong Place - was recently changed by the producers as it was deemed offensive by Mironov's close friends and Rocchelli's family. The new title, Crossfire, is a reference to the last words of Andrei Mironov, captured on the video several minutes before his death. "There is a crossfire, - he says, - and we are caught in the middle!".
More here: I investigated who really killed my colleagues in Donbas. Now I.m under attack by Russian & Italian media
On October 21, Councilor Franco Vassallo commented on the Markiv case in the MilanPost:
“Vitaliy Markiv is a patriot, a young, innocent family man, who was caught in the absurdity of our judicial system. What he is not is a murderer. This is surreal story based on conditionals and conditioning, in which no one saw him shoot, the murder weapon was not found, in which there are no fingerprints or direct witnesses to the shooting. All we can do is hope that it will end in the best possible way. Let us not forget the tragic story of Enzo Tortora and the injustice that he suffered…”Sophia Kayes, Andrei Mironov’s niece recently showed her support on FB for the Ukrainian-Italian film crew and their upcoming documentary Crossfire.
