Handziuk case: ECHR orders Ukraine to pay €80,000 to activist’s parents and husband
On October 5, following a closed hearing in the case of Kherson activist Kateryna Handziuk, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered the state to pay €40,000 in non-pecuniary damages to her parents and €40,000 to her husband.
This is stated in the court's judgment, published on its official website on November 5, Censor.NET reports, citing Interfax-Ukraine.
State involvement
The ECHR found that state involvement in the fatal acid attack on Kherson activist Kateryna Handziuk constituted a violation of the right to life and freedom of expression. The applicants were the activist's parents, Viktor and Nadiia Handziuk, and her husband, Serhii Denysov.
The court established that the 2018 attack on the activist was a planned and paid operation intended to silence a person acting as a public watchdog.
The judgment stated that the available evidence was sufficiently strong, clear, and consistent to conclude that there was a close connection between the attack and the exercise or abuse of state power, thereby engaging the state's responsibility.
The ECHR also found a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression. The court said the attack was objectively capable of spreading fear among other journalists, activists and civil society representatives. It had a particularly serious "chilling effect" on public debate about corruption and abuse of power.
Non-pecuniary damages
- The court ruled that Ukraine must pay €40,000 to Kateryna Handziuk's parents and €40,000 to her husband within three months in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
- In addition, Ukraine must pay €4,000 in legal costs to all applicants, "plus any tax that may be chargeable to them, in respect of costs and expenses, to be paid directly into the bank account of the applicants' representative."
Kateryna Handziuk case
- On July 31, 2018, Kherson mayoral adviser Kateryna Handziuk was attacked near the entrance to her apartment building and doused with sulfuric acid. Handziuk was admitted to intensive care. On November 4, the activist died in the hospital.
- On June 6, 2019, the court sentenced five perpetrators of Handziuk's murder to prison terms ranging from three to six and a half years. Ihor Pavlovskyi, whom investigators consider an intermediary between those who commissioned the murder and those who carried it out, is being tried separately.
- In July 2020, prosecutors submitted an indictment to the court against Kherson Regional Council Chairman Vladyslav Manher and Oleksii Levin, a former assistant to a Kherson Regional Council member, for organizing the attack on Handziuk.
- On August 12, the Kyiv Court of Appeal assigned the case against Vladyslav Manher and Oleksii Levin to Kyiv's Dniprovskyi District Court.
- At one hearing, witnesses in the case — former Right Sector member Pavlo Pylypenko and businessman Serhii Braha — testified in court about the involvement of Kherson Regional Council Chairman Vladyslav Manher and his accomplice Oleksii Levin in commissioning the attack on activist Kateryna Handziuk.
- On June 26, 2023, Kyiv's Dniprovskyi District Court sentenced Levin and Manher to 10 years in prison.
