Dmitry Korchynsky, the leader of the radical Bratstvo (Brotherhood) party, has been declared internationally wanted.
"I am sure that this person's whereabouts will be established shortly and due measures will be taken," chief of the ministry's criminal search department Vasyl Paskal has said.
"We also have reports saying that individual members of Korchynsky's organization - 15 people - lived in his office. He used these individuals during most radical actions," the official said.
Earlier
reports quoting the Interior Ministry said Korchynsky who is suspected
of organizing clashes between protesters and police in the center of
Kiev on December 1 is abroad and Ukraine is taking measures to have him
arrested.
Speaking
at a Saturday briefing in Kiev Mykola Chynchyn, head of the ministry's
investigative department, Chynchyn did not mention Korchynsky's exact
whereabouts. According
to official reports, nearly 140 police officers were injured in the
clashes blamed on Korchynsky and 75 of them were hospitalized. Also, 165
protesters sought medical assistance after the violence.
The Kiev police authority said soon after the clashes that more than 300 Bratstvo members had been involved in them. Bratstvo is accused of continually provoking violence since the 2000s. Prime
Minister Mykola Azarov claimed on December 2 that it was not in the
interests of the government to provoke violence.
"The only thing that is in our interest is to avoid such provocations. We know very well now who organizes those provocations," Azarov said at a meeting in Kiev with the ambassadors of the European Union, Canada and the United States.
He said he was referring to "ultras" - Bratstvo and "some well-trained people representing the Svoboda organization."
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