The attack occurred after the members of Svoboda came out of the Shevchenkivskyy's police station. The party called the attack an 'attempted murder'. According to Batkivschyna MP Arsen Avakov (on 9 January 2014) recently the protesters in Kyiv had experienced regular power cuts; to prevent this oppositions MPs did have five meetings with Kyiv city authorities and electricity suppliers and installed back-up generators. According to Avakov there had been no difficulties with taking rubbish out of Maidan Nezalezhnosti and taking wood into the square. On 10 January, Berkut riot police clashed with protesters near Kyiv-Sviatoshyn Raion district court in Sviatoshyn neighborhood of Kyiv, where guilty verdicts against the so-called "Vasylkiv terrorists" were announced. The Patriot of Ukraine group members were given 6-year sentences for 'trying to blow up a non-existent Vladimir Lenin statue' (a local city council already dismantled the Lenin monument before the alleged plot was discovered); critics called the court proceedings a sham. After the court verdict was announced, protesters (more than 100) decided to block the prisoner transport bus, after which hundreds of riot police were dispatched, who used tear gas and batons. More than a dozen people got injured, some of them seriously, with reports of multiple broken hands and legs, as well as head injuries. Opposition leader Yuri Lutsenko was among the injured, photographed with bloody head wounds and knocked unconscious before being taken to a hospital for intensive care. A witness account stated that police targeted Lutsenko, dragging him into a bus where he was beaten. Three members of the Svoboda Party were also injured; as well as two photojournalists, whose camera equipment was broken by police. European Union and American officials condemned the attack, with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt saying "Lutsenko will be remembered as hero of EuroMaidan" for trying to intervene in the confrontation between police and protesters. The three opposition party leaders (Klitschko, Yatseniuk, and Tyahnybok) issued a joint statement condemning the assault, categorizing it as attempted murder. On 12 January, the protests numbered 10,000–50,000 people were held on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. On 15 January, courts banned protests and public assembly in Kyiv once again. This led the opposition to believe that the following night ("and the next ones") Maidan Nezalezhnosti would be cleared by Berkut special police units. 16 January 2014 anti-protest laws On 16 January the MPs from Party of Regions and Communist Party of Ukraine (and a