The Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv stopped the trial regarding the murder of journalist Pavlo Sheremet in Kyiv in 2016. On January 24, 2024, Dmytro Kruhovy, the lawyer of one of the defendants, Andriy Antonenko, told about this, Ukrinform reports.
The case will not be considered until the demobilization of one of the accused, Yana Duhar. She has a managerial position and is engaged in the evacuation of soldiers from the battlefield. The second defendant, Andriy Antonenko, serves in the army under contract, and the third defendant, Yuliia Kuzmenko, travels to the frontline regions as a doctor.
"Yana and Andriy are in military service, they are involved in the performance of tasks directly in the area of hostilities, and due to the fact that they donʼt always have the opportunity to attend court hearings, a petition was filed to stop the court proceedings. And today, the court granted the request of one of the defenders — Denys Lomanov — for a stay," said the lawyer.
According to him, since 2022, since Russia began a full-scale invasion, the court cannot continue its work in the same composition as before.
"Some of the jurors went abroad. One of the jurors was mobilized. And due to the fact that the composition of the court was changed, the case began to be heard here from the very beginning. And itʼs already 2024, and we still havenʼt reached the stage [of considering the case], we havenʼt even started at all," Kruhovy said.
- On December 12, 2019, the then head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, announced the arrest of suspects in the murder of journalist Pavlo Sheremet. Later, at a briefing, the law enforcement officers presented part of the results of the investigation and named the suspects: military nurse Yana Duhar, doctor Yuliia Kuzmenko, musician and employee of the Special Operations Forces Andriy Antonenko.
- Subsequently, the suspects in the case were charged. Andriy Antonenko is now not the organizer of the murder, but the executor of the previous conspiracy. Yuliia Kuzmenko is also an executor, and Yana Duhar is an accomplice.
- On September 28, 2020, the jury trial began considering the merits of the case.