The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine responded to the appeal of the Lviv Regional Council regarding the prosecution of Serhiy Sternenko, Andriy Antonenko, Yulia Kuzmenko, and Yana Dugar.
Regarding the appeal against Sternenko, the OGPU “switched the focus” to the Odessa Regional Prosecutor’s Office, writing in its response to the appeal that “the issues raised in the appeal fall within the competence of the Odessa Regional Prosecutor’s Office.” Accordingly, the OGPU transferred the regional council’s appeal to the head of the Odessa Regional Prosecutor’s Office, Serhiy Kostenko, who showed open bias in the Sternenko case and was directly implicated in Serhiy’s conviction.
Regarding the appeal in the so-called “Sheremet case,” the Prosecutor General’s Office responded as follows: “If during the next consideration of the petitions (that is, the meeting that took place on March 23, 2021 – Lawmaker) on the extension of the term of preventive measures against the accused in the court session, if the circumstances provided for in clause 3, part 1, article 194 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine are not proven ( failure to apply more lenient precautions to prevent the risk or risks identified in the application – Law maker), the court has the right to apply a more lenient measure of restraint than the one specified in the prosecutor's motion."
It is worth noting that during the hearing on March 23, the prosecution did not prove the circumstances stipulated in clause 3, part 1, article 194 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: the defense of Antonenko, Dugar, Kuzmenko shattered the prosecutor's arguments, even Judge Holub repeatedly demanded clarifications from the prosecutor during the hearing. But this did not affect the change of preventive measures. Thus, we can state that they simply decided to shift responsibility to the court for Iryna Venediktova and are not going to change the petition regarding the change of preventive measures, effectively refusing the Lviv Regional Council to satisfy one of the requirements of the appeal.
