KIEV, Feb. 12 - A judge who sentenced several antigovernment protesters to house arrest died of gunshot wounds on Wednesday, as Ukraine enters its third month of political crisis amid mounting violence.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry suggested government critics were behind the murder, while opposition leaders called the accusation part of a continuing smear campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported.

After clashes between protesters and police in Kiev in January, the two sides have settled into a stalemate and now show signs of hunkering down for a prolonged partisan conflict.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry said the judge, 34-year-old Oleksandr Lobodenko, was shot several times in the back outside his home in industrial city of Kremenchuk late Tuesday, and died hours later in a hospital.

The ministry said the killing appeared to be related to his job, and noted that the judge had recently "taken preventive action" against antigovernment activists who had taken over a government building.

A number of Ukrainian judges have been murdered in recent years.

Opposition leaders decried the statement as the latest attempt to discredit protesters, who they say have been the main victims of violence since the crisis began last year.
"They have said things like we beat police," said Serhiy Pashinskiy. "It's really dumb PR."

In Ukraine, Pashinskiy said, judges "don't need [protesters] for them to be threatened."

The death comes as Ukraine's opposition groups are forming parallel security forces around the country to counterbalance police, who they say have brutalized protesters and have been complicit in some of their disappearances. The government denies most allegations and says it will investigate some cases.

Ukraine's government says the groups are essentially vigilante squads, and has urged them to disband.

But as the stalemate has worn on, they have become more organized and in Kiev, a volunteer force of protesters wielding bats and clubs control the center of the city, where thousands maintain barricades and a tent city.

On Wednesday, more than 100 club-wielding men from the protesters' camp took the unusual step of moving outside their usual confines, and surrounded a courthouse in another part of Kiev where a judge was deciding the fate of four protesters who had been under house arrest for alleged extortion.

The judge released the prisoners, but not before police said the protesters vandalized a police car and punctured the tires and the gas tank of the vehicle that brought the suspects to court.

On Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said it was launching an inquiry into "self-defense squads" that were reportedly enlisting gun owners in the region, warning that offenders could be prosecuted under a law forbidding paramilitary groups.

With Ukraine's currency plummeting and regions falling out of government control, Western diplomats have been trying to coax President Viktor Yanukovych into a power-sharing agreement with his critics, who took to the streets after he abruptly turned his back on a cooperation agreement with the European Union and instead signed a $15 billion financial package with Moscow.

But talks between Yanukovych and the opposition have come to a standstill.

Last week, he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the opening of the winter Olympic Games in Sochi, and after returning to Ukraine he appears to be playing for time.

Many in the opposition say they fear he is preparing to introduce tougher measures after the games are over.
Opposition leaders attempted to call an emergency session of Parliament on Wednesday to consider measures that might end the crisis, among them a law that would offer amnesty to protesters.

Opposition leaders also insist on returning to an older version of the constitution that would curb presidential powers and allow the Parliament to appoint a prime minister and a cabinet.

But Yanukovych's party, which holds a majority of seats in Parliament, opposed the session. Party leaders said none of the laws are likely to be ready for a vote until the next regular parliament session on Tuesday, the day after a legal deadline expires for the protesters to leave occupied government buildings in Kiev, where deadly clashes between them and police took place in January.

Opposition leaders said they fear a government crackdown if they don't evacuate the buildings before the deadline. (wsj/ez)