DHAKA: Ukraine’s ex-interior minister and current opposition leader Yuriy Lutsenko is in intensive care in hospital on Saturday after being beaten in fresh clashes that erupted between pro-European Union demonstrators and club-wielding police.

Dozens of nationalist demonstrators protested late Friday outside a Kiev court that had earlier in the day sentenced three men to six years in prison for allegedly plotting to blow up a statue of Soviet founder Lenin near the city’s main airport in 2011.

Ukrainian television showed several protesters being carried by stretcher to an ambulance that had been rushed to the scene, reports The Straits Times.

Russian state television said the anti-riot troops moved in after being pelted with rocks by protesters who were trying to block police vans as the three convicts were being led out of the court in order to be placed in jail.

BDST: 1452 HRS, JAN 11, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor