{"id":98959,"date":"2020-02-24T16:08:35","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T16:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uacrisis.org\/?p=75003"},"modified":"2020-02-25T13:20:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T11:20:53","slug":"75003-two-bombs-sheremet-case-administration-law-vs-common-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/75003-two-bombs-sheremet-case-administration-law-vs-common-sense","title":{"rendered":"Two Bombs in the Sheremet Case or The Administration of Law vs. Common Sense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Text written by\u00a0FreeRiff Community Committee on the Release of Illegal Prisoners<\/em><\/p>\n

Oleksandr Zheleznyak<\/p>\n

The first bomb was real. It went off on July 20, 2016, in downtown Kyiv, ripping up a car and killing journalist Pavel Sheremet. The second bomb was virtual, activated on December 12, 2019, when the Ukrainian Interior Ministry at a news conference trumpeted that the Sheremet case was solved and three suspects apprehended: Andriy Antonenko, a rock musician, composer and sergeant of the Ukrainian army\u2019s Special Operations Forces; Yulia Kuzmenko, a pediatric cardiac surgeon; and Yana Duhar, a medical sergeant in the 25th Airborne Brigade. Noteworthy, all three are volunteers and participants in the Joint Forces Operation, one of the official euphemisms of the Russian-Ukrainian war. In this way, the second bomb hit the entire community of veterans and volunteers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Background<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pavel Sheremet, born on November 28, 1971, in Minsk, Belarus, was a journalist in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. In July 1997, while reporting for Public Television of Russia on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border, he was arrested by Belarus law enforcement authorities for alleged border trespassing, then also charged with accepting payments from foreign intelligence agencies and illegal journalist activities. He was sentenced to two years with probation. He spent three months in an investigative isolation ward, was released with the help of Russia President Boris Yeltsin and he moved to Moscow. In 2011, he moved to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

At 8:00 amon July 20, 2016, while driving the car of his flatmate Olena Prytula, cofounder and owner of the popular online daily Ukrainska Pravda<\/em>, Sheremet was killed by a remotely detonated improvised explosive device.<\/p>\n

\"\"The crime scene on July 20, 2016. (Source: <\/em>Ukrainska Pravda<\/a>)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

An ad hoc task force was formed to investigate the crime that included officers of the National Police and the Security Service of Ukraine as well as US FBI representatives in Ukraine.[1]<\/a> At a media briefing on August 4, 2016, the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General\u2019s Office reported on four possible scenarios the group was investigating: hostile interpersonal relationships, connections to professional journalist activities, intent to destabilize the situation in Ukraine and accidental murder when the criminal intent was to kill Olena Prytula. A month later, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in an interview, \u201cOur enemy, imperialist Russia headed by dictator Putin, will go any length to destabilize our country including terrorist attacks on influential journalists\u2026 I do not exclude that we have this situation with the Sheremet homicide.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Indeed, investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet, a close friend of Russian politician Boris Nemtsov who was killed on February 27, 2015 in Moscow, severely criticized Putin\u2019s regime, and we know that Putin\u2019s enemies are often found dead not only in Russia and Ukraine but also on British and German soil.<\/p>\n

Three years later, on July 20, 2019, President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on Facebook, \u201cThe previous president and law enforcement agencies called solving the murder of Pavel Sheremet \u2018a matter of honor.\u2019 Three years have passed. There are still more questions than answers. On July 23, I ask the Prosecutor General, the Interior Minister, the National Police Chief and the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] Chief to get together and report on the investigation\u2019s progress. I invite journalists to the meeting. The Ukrainian community has long awaited an answer to the question \u2018Who killed Pavel?\u2019\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

On July 23, 2019, National Police Chief Serhiy Knyazev made a presentation for the President and the media on the investigation, offering little not already generally known. Before the presentation, in a separate room, he familiarized Zelensky with classified information on the case on conditions of nondisclosure.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Less than five months later, police claimed they cracked the case.<\/p>\n

Case solved?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At a news conference on December 12, 2019,[5]<\/a>\u00a0sanctified by the presence of President Zelensky in the entourage of Interior Minister Avakov, Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka and Criminal Police Chief Yevhen Koval, law enforcement briefed the audience on the three-and-a-half-year investigation, named the suspects \u2013 Andriy Antonenko, Yulia Kuzmenko and Yana Duhar \u2013 and presented what they called evidence. According to police, Antonenko organized the group, Duhar was a scout and Kuzmenko planted the bomb.<\/p>\n

The suspects had been apprehended just prior to the press conference. Within the next two days, the investigative judge ordered Antonenko\u2019s and Kuzmenko’s detention for a period of 60 days in an investigative isolation ward pending trial. The measure of restraint for Duhar was 60-day house arrest (later changed to night house arrest). Sixty days later, on motion of the prosecutor, detentions were extended by another 60 days.<\/p>\n

Two more persons were mentioned at the news conference as being involved in the crime \u2013 Inna and Vladyslav Hryscenkos, also war veterans. However, they have not been formally charged.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

In brief, the story told by the National Police, the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General\u2019s Office at the news conference and later in the courts is as follows. In July 2016, musician Andriy Antonenko formed a terrorist group that included cardiac surgeon Yulia Kuzmenko and nurse Yana Duhar. They procured an electronic detonator, explosive substance and fragments of an anti-personnel mine from \u201cunidentified persons\u201d and made a radio-controlled explosive device. On July 16 and 18, Duhar acted as a scout, photographing surveillance cameras in Sheremet\u2019s neighborhood. Around 2:30 amon July 20, Kuzmenko, accompanied by Antonenko, planted the device under the car.<\/p>\n

So what makes the police and prosecution believe (or pretend to believe) that the three volunteers took the life of the person they had nothing to do with? What could be their motive? And what are the defense\u2019s arguments and those of just plain common sense?<\/p>\n

There are more questions. Why did the President not only attend the news conference but also ascend the stage and thank Avakov, investigators and prosecutors for their \u201creally powerful work\u201d? He said, \u201cThe likely killers were detained today.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0Didn\u2019t he understand that his words could be interpreted as pressure on the court, which is supposed to be the only institution authorized to decide how likely the three suspects were the killers? And didn\u2019t he think about possible political fallout for him personally in case of their acquittal?<\/p>\n

By the way, in an interview on January 30, 2020, Prosecutor General Ryaboshapka said the investigation needed additional evidence to take the case to the court because \u201cThe collected volume of evidence is insufficient.\u201d[8]<\/a>\u00a0Do they have a case at all?<\/p>\n

Copy\/pasted greatness of the Aryan race<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Police attributed the original motive of the crime to Andriy Antonenko. It\u2019s worth quoting their allegation:<\/p>\n

[Andriy Antonenko], having been fascinated by ultra-nationalistic ideas, cultivating the greatness of the Aryan race and the society dissociation based on the principle of ethnic origin, aiming at making his views an object of public attention\u2026 decided to set up an organized group in order to kill journalist and radio host Sheremet.[9]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

What is the ground for what the defense calls an \u201cabsurd statement\u201d? Did they find Mein Kampf<\/em>in Antonenko\u2019s private library? The \u201cproof\u201d they were able to dig up in the week after the suspicious announcement was a picture of Hitler portrayed as either Santa Claus or Russian Father Frost that Andriy posted on his Facebook \u2013 a mere joke probably alluding to the fact that Russian propaganda calls Ukrainian patriots Nazis. Strange, the investigators failed to see another, clearly anti-xenophobic post by Antonenko in 2016 when he allegedly was so \u201cfascinated by ultra-nationalistic ideas, cultivating the greatness of the Aryan race\u201d\u00a0\u2013 photos of Ukrainian soldiers of various ethnic origin standing against the background of respective national flags: Israeli, Croatian, Azerbaijani\u2026<\/p>\n