Ukraine Prosecutor Says Yanukovych Still in Ukraine
Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovych remains in the country, deputy general prosecutor Mykola Golomcha said Wednesday, without giving further details of the whereabouts of the leader who vanished over the weekend.
"We have information indicating Yanukovych is still in Ukraine," Golomcha told reporters in Kiev.
No further details were given about the whereabouts of the fugitive leader -- who was last seen in a televised interview Saturday after he flew into eastern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said he had no information on the whereabouts of Ukraine's fugitive leader following reports he had fled to Moscow.
Local business channel RBK-TV had reported that Viktor Yanukovych arrived in Moscow in the early hours of Tuesday, staying at the luxury Ukraina hotel.
On Wednesday, Yanukovych, a staunch Kremlin ally, went to a health resort in Barvikha near Moscow, the RBK report said.
The channel cited an unnamed "major Russian businessman" as its source and said the information had been confirmed by a "high-ranking Russian official."
But Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency: "I do not have any such information."
Russian lawmaker Mikhail Marguelov said he was certain Yanukovych was outside Russia.
"I know definitely that Yanukovych is not in Russia and in my opinion, Russia should not give him asylum," Marguelov, who heads a parliamentary committee on international affairs, told TV channel Russia Today.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's interim general prosecutor said that Kiev has requested an international arrest warrant for Yanukovych, who is wanted within his own crisis-hit country over the "mass murder" of protesters.
Oleg Makhnytsky told reporters in Kiev that Yanukovych, who vanished over the weekend following a week of deadly clashes in the capital, was "the subject of an international arrest warrant", although it was as yet unclear whether authorities had made a formal demand to Interpol.
Yanukovych -- along with other former high-ranking officials -- is wanted by Kiev over the "mass murder" of protesters, and parliament voted Tuesday to appeal to the International Criminal Court in the Hague to prosecute him.
Source: Agence France Presse
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