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The next meeting was held on October 8. Photo: Country
On Thursday, October 8, an ordinary hearing was held at the Shevchenko Court in Kiev in the case of the murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet. This is the second session of the jury.
There were three defendants in the courtroom: Yulia Kuzmenko and Yana Dugar in the dock, Andrei Antonenko in a glass cell (remains in detention).
Pavel Sheremet died on July 20, 2016 after the car in which he was traveling exploded.
In December 2019, the Interior Ministry arrested three suspects: surgeon Yulia Kuzmenko, musician Andrei Antonenko (these two ATO volunteers consider themselves murderers) and a nurse from the paratrooper battalion Yana Dugar (they called her a gunner ).
The court is considering this case in essence. During today’s meeting, the prosecution said that all three refuse to cooperate with the investigation. And the lawyers called the proceedings of the Prosecutor’s Office, which wants to hear more than two hundred witnesses, an attempt to delay the process.
Also today, the prosecution revealed many details about how Antonenko, Kuzmenko and Dugar, in their opinion, killed Pavel Sheremet.
He picked up the most important thing that happened in court today.
The defendants rejected the expertise
During the hearing, the prosecutor said that the suspects refused to cooperate with the investigation. Which is indirect evidence in favor of the prosecution.
Antonenko refused to conduct a research experiment with his participation. Kuzmenko refused to be interrogated simultaneously with Antonenko, and Dugar refused based on a handwriting examination (providing handwriting samples), a forensic psychiatric examination, and growth measurements.
At the same time, the examination of Dugar’s handwriting was carried out; the researchers used their hospital diary entries.
Looking ahead: according to the prosecution, in July 2016, when Pavel Sheremet was killed, Dugar was not in the hospital and lied to the investigation about his true whereabouts.
In addition, the three also refused to undergo a forensic psychological test on a polygraph. According to the prosecutor, this raises suspicions of innocence, which the defendants insist on.
Mine under Antonenko
The investigation revealed some details of the arrest of Andrei Antonenko.
As previously established, during the Sheremet assassination, an explosive device was used – a mine. Therefore, the investigation seemed suspicious that Antonenko, having learned of his suspect status (ie during his arrest), tried to hide the body of the MON-50 mine, as well as the telephone, where there is evidence of this.
The prosecutor also recalled that Yana Dugar hid her phone and her purse after learning that she was suspected of being involved in the murder.
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Knowledge of Kuzmenko
The investigation also refutes Antonenko’s statements that he was almost unfamiliar with Yulia Kuzmenko, who, according to law enforcement officers, is an accessory to the murder.
The prosecutor stated that Antonenko really knew her well.
The proof was the number of phone calls and correspondence. The investigation considers the data on their co-location as additional evidence of their relationship: they were collected on the basis of telephone connections, which were recorded by cell phone towers.
In total, in 2016 Antonenko and Kuzmenko called 86 times and sent 252 messages to the FB. We also communicate closely on Viber and Telegram.
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According to the investigation, Antonenko also spoke with Kuzmenko’s friend Pyotr Kiyan, who, the day before the murder, was also not far from the place where Sheremet lived.
Yulia Kuzmenko was there too: the prosecutor claims that her phone has a geotag about her location in the area on the eve of the murder.
The prosecution also spoke about those questioned in the case: residents of nearby districts, employees of “Ukrainska Pravda”, “Channel 17”. Sheremet’s journalistic materials were also examined. In total, the prosecution testified 263 witnesses in this case and offered to hear them in court.
The defense called this an attempt to delay the process.
What the lawyers said
According to the lawyers of the accused, the video of the placing of a bomb in the car of journalist Pavel Sheremet, who is cited by the prosecution, is of very low quality, so it is impossible to establish who is represented in it.
The defense also pointed out to the prosecutor that the portrait-psychological examination at this time could not reveal evidence in this case.
In addition, the lawyer assured that the geodata stored in the phone of the suspect Yulia Kuzmenko and that supposedly indicate that she was in Lev Tolstoy Square on the eve of the murder could not be cited as evidence.
According to him, geolocation marks only indicate the stay of a person within a radius of 1.5 kilometers from the actual location. At the same time, previous prosecutors claimed that Kuzmenko turned off his phone and left it at home on the eve of the murder, and this, according to the lawyer, contradicts the retained etiquette that prosecutors are talking about.
However, prosecutors said Kuzmenko’s phone was there on the eve of the murder.
The defense also explained the refusal to cross-examine. The reason turned out to be extremely general: the defendant’s words can be misused. According to this logic, this method of investigative actions should be canceled entirely.
The lawyer pointed out that at first the prosecutors argued that Andrei Antonenko was the organizer of the murder, Yana Dugar was an accomplice and Yulia Kuzmenko was the executor, but then Antonenko and Kuzmenko became, according to the investigation, the perpetrators. That is, the organizer dropped the case. It is true that it is not clear how this prevents the alleged artists from being tried.
Jury and cheerleader
Unlike previous meetings, the support group for the suspects was very small: about 15 people gathered in the street.
The day of the court session. Photo: Country
During the session, the court granted the challenge to one of the main members of the jury, Yuri Mikhailenko, as his place of residence is not in the area where the trial is taking place. Instead of him, Yuri Fedorenko was chosen from the reserve jury.
Almost three hours later, the judge decided to end the trial. The next hearing will take place on October 21 at 12:00.
