Man attacks journalist in court in Odesa

In Odesa, police served a man with a notice of suspicion of obstructing the legitimate professional activities of a journalist.

According to the press service of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Odesa Oblast, the incident occurred in March in the Prymorskyi District Court of Odesa, where an open court hearing was held to impose a preventive measure on an official from Odesa Oblast suspected of extortion.

A 53-year-old journalist from a regional online publication also arrived at the courtroom to record the proceedings and provide further media coverage. The police found that when the judge announced a break in the session, the participants went out into the corridor, where a conflict broke out between the media representative and a man he had not met before. The latter approached the journalist, who was performing an editorial assignment, and demanded that he stop filming, and then hit his working video camera, trying to damage it and disrupt the recording.

Despite the fact that the journalist was wearing a badge indicating his affiliation with the media and was working with equipment that had the logo of the editorial office, the man deliberately tried to prevent him from filming.

The police registered this incident in the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations under Part 1 of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (obstruction of the legitimate professional activity of journalists), and within the framework of the initiated proceedings, the offender was identified. It was a 41-year-old countryman of the suspect.

According to current legislation, if found guilty, the man who attacked the journalist faces up to three years in prison.

Earlier, the Prymorskyi District Court of Odesa sentenced the city native to five years in prison for obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and intentional light bodily harm.

Кирило Бойко