The murder of Pavlo Sheremet in July 2016 was one of the most unprecedented acts of violence against journalists in modern Ukraine. Like the murders of Georgy Gongadze and Kateryna Handziuk, this crime remains unsolved.
In contrast, ATO veteran Andriy Antonenko "Rifmaster", whom the investigation suspects of involvement in Sheremet's death, has been behind bars for almost a year and a half. On January 29, the court will hear the eighth appeal regarding the recognition of Antonenko's imprisonment as contrary to criminal procedural norms. Why is Antonenko not being released from the pre-trial detention center, although his "accomplices" have had their preventive measures eased, what the investigation's arguments are based on, and how adequately the court is behaving, we asked Leonid Maslov, a representative of the "Rif" defense team.
— At the beginning of the year, former Belarusian KGB officer Igor Makar released audio recordings of a conversation between heads of Belarusian special services who discussed the assassination of Pavel Sheremet back in April 2012, in particular by bombing. What changed in the Sheremet case and in the indictment of Antonenko after that?
— Nothing has changed. There is media coverage, perhaps it will somehow influence the jury and judges. But there are zero changes in the course of the investigation. It seems that these records on Bogomolets (in the Ministry of Internal Affairs — Editor's note) surprised no one. The lack of changes also says a lot.
— The investigation continues to insist that the suspects Antonenko, Kuzmenko, and Dugar acted out of "destabilization" motives?
— Exclusively. But the investigation is also unable to prove this motive, even by excluding other motives, because there are none in the materials either. And this is very important. Because in court, in order to defend one motive for committing a crime, the prosecution must prove that they have rejected less likely motives in favor of more likely ones.
— Is the Belarusian version plausible, from your point of view?
— I am not ready to answer the question that the investigation should have answered. I can only testify that in the Sheremet case, the investigation ignored the “Belarusian version” from the very beginning. Even the words “Belarus” were frantically tried to avoid. Neither at the briefing, nor on television, nor in the course of preparing the case for trial. Other probable motives were also not considered. Why? I only have an assumption.
— Did Sheremet have enemies - personal or business?
— I am convinced that no. He is not Tanya Chornovol, not Serhiy Sternenko, who rush to dig up any conflict, literally climb onto a tank with their bare hands. Sheremet was a person who was maximally tolerant of everyone. At least in Ukraine. He did not even have business interests to drag some corporate showdowns here. The only one who was deeply dissatisfied with him was dictator Lukashenko. This was known even without Makar's tapes. That is why he fled from him to Russia, and then to Ukraine.
— Does the involvement of Makar's films and the development of the "Belarusian version" somehow contribute to the acquittal of Antonenko, Kuzmenko, and Dugar?
— Of course! Because none of them were recruited by the Belarusian KGB. Even the investigators of the National Police could not have dreamed of such a thing in their wildest dreams.
There is another convincing fact that neither doctor Kuzmenko, nor paramedic Dugar, nor “cultural and educational” special forces officer Antonenko could have been the perpetrators of the terrorist attack. This is that the explosion was carried out by professionals. And this is known for certain from the results of the explosives examination and fragments of video from surveillance cameras. Not even crime, but professional bomb-makers with experience in sabotage work. I was convinced of this by British military expert Glen Grant, a former officer of the British General Staff. He saw many terrorists in Ulster (a region in northern Ireland where the Irish Republican Army was active). According to his observations, even the bravest amateur terrorist gets nervous when dealing with explosives, when transporting them to the planting site. Grant made this conclusion after analyzing a large number of operational videos.
In the Sheremet case, we do not observe any trickery on the tapes. The video demonstrates absolute professionalism, even audacity. A woman preparing to plant explosives, or a person dressed as a woman, is a very high-level bomber... And this gives away the secret service on 100%.
Just like the planning of the route by the bomb-slayers to the place of laying the explosives. They were clearly aware of where and how they could "get lost" for the surveillance cameras. The methodology of such training reflects many years of special services training, which none of those who ended up in the pre-trial detention center in the Sheremet case had. Not even Sergeant Andriy Antonenko.
And another fact that indirectly points to a Belarusian trace is the date of the terrorist attack: July 20, the day of Lukashenko's first inauguration, which took place in 1994. One can, of course, assume a coincidence, but this is exactly the case when one wants to quote a famous Kremlin propagandist (Maslov is referring to Russian TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov with his catchphrase "Coincidence? I don't think so" — Editor's note).
Investigation
— How, then, did the investigation turn up these three people?
— This is a long story, which surprisingly lacks a logical basis. There is such a thing as the “Gryshchenko case”. Before the war, Vladyslav Gryshchenko served time under criminal articles, was released early in 2013. In 2014, he joined the Right Sector Special Unit, showed extraordinary heroism during the defense of the DAP as part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. His comrades from the 95th Airmobile Brigade describe him as a conscientious fighter and a highly skilled saboteur.
The Hryshchenko case contains a lot of dubious physical evidence, and it is being conducted by the same investigator who is investigating the murder of Sheremet. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has repeatedly announced the version that it was the Hryshchenkos who allegedly made the explosive device to kill Sheremet. But the Hryshchenkos had an alibi. In particular, the fact that Iryna “Puma” at the time of the attempt on Sheremet was being treated for a serious wound and was moving around on crutches. Because of this, she could not be identified with the “woman” in the video from under Sheremet’s house.
It is also known that in 2016, Grishchenko did indeed receive an "order" to commit a crime, but did not carry it out. Instead, in cooperation with law enforcement officers, he took part in staging a murder.
The trial has not yet begun due to lack of evidence, but that's another story. I'll say one thing. — It has nothing to do with the murder of Sheremet, just as it has nothing to do with the deaths of John F. Kennedy or Olof Palme.
The only thing that formally connects these two cases is that in the Hryshchenko case there was a bomb that supposedly fell from the bottom of the jeep of the victim - the late Mykhailo Chekurak, a well-known criminal authority in the Carpathian region. And in the Sheremet case, there was a bomb under the bottom of the car.
And so, because of the explosive device (in the Hryshchenko case), someone very "resourceful" in the National Police came up with the idea of solving all crimes related to explosives. Apparently, this was reported to the leadership, and they to the higher ones. And on the principle of "returning service", the version was overgrown with all this absurdity that we observe in the Sheremet case.
— Are the murder weapons actually identical in the cases of the Hryshchenkos and Sheremet?
— They are no more alike than a bulldog and a rhinoceros. Neither in terms of their operating principle nor in terms of technology, these devices have anything in common. Except that they both explode…
The bomb they tried to kill Chekurak with worked by pulling out a ring with a rope wound around the axle of the car. And Sheremet had a radio-controlled device filled with shrapnel, which Chekurak did not have. Because Chekurak's bomb contained 3 kg of hexogen and 400 g of TNT, which together gave 5 kg in TNT equivalent. This is almost an air bomb, shrapnel is not needed here.
And Sheremet had a light, caseless, directional device with 470 grams of explosives in TNT equivalent. This once again betrays the professionals.
At a press conference, the first persons of the state lied shamelessly that the devices were “almost identical.” The only thing that related them was the mounting on neodymium magnets. But even those were of different shapes.
Our expert, whose name I will not disclose yet, noted that the shrapnel in the device used to kill Sheremet was manufactured in a small-scale production process — using special technology for a specific mine. This once again points to the secret service roots of this crime. I do not exclude that the FBI wrote something similar.
— But who came up with this idea, or even more so, convinced Avakov and Zelensky of it?
— In structures such as the army and the police, the principle of “lies that go up” applies — when, as the report progresses from lower to higher ranks, the initial hypothesis becomes overgrown with myths: subordinates pour into the ears of the leader a version more acceptable to him. That’s how the higher-ups got to the point that Sheremet’s murder was “practically solved,” let’s go to a press conference…
— How did Antonenko appear in this version?
— Very simply - using statistical methods, a certain number of people whose mobile numbers were lit up in the area where the crime was committed, and the location of the phone was, so to speak, uncharacteristic, namely irregular. This is determined by a program that uses a mathematical algorithm to analyze mobile traffic in a certain location.
The sample included about 40 thousand people, including Antonenko and his wife, because they had a room in a communal apartment nearby on Honchara Street at the time. They did not live there, but they kept some things there and visited there from time to time. For artificial intelligence, this was a sign of “uncharacteristic.”
Then the investigation applied this sample to the Hryshchenkos' contact list and got the suspect Kuzmenko. Then they took those who fell into the circle of suspects "by chance" and external signs, such as Dugar and Antonenko.
Not only did the circle of people intersect purely mechanically, as of 2016 these people did not even know each other. Antonenko and Kuzmenko had only become friends on Facebook 5 months earlier, but had not met in person.
— Does such a mechanical selection allow for a guilty verdict?
— That's why they're dragging out the court process, because there's no point in passing a sentence, and releasing Antonenko is politically incorrect, because they've involved top state officials in the case. And they're not "suckers"...
Only on January 12, 2021, the prosecutor presented evidence — paper and electronic. It took half a year. And presenting does not mean examining. Only now is the court proceeding to examining the evidence.
We have a full list of evidence provided by the investigation — there is nothing there, not even a hint of it. There is a forensic “gait analysis” comparing two videos. One video is from surveillance cameras during the alleged planting of the bomb, the second one is supposedly showing Antonenko, but his face is not visible. Moreover, the original of the second video was lost by the investigation.
The procedure for presenting the materials of the "wiretapping" has also been violated, which makes it illegal, although there is no hint of a crime there either. So the lesser evil, in order not to drag the first persons of the state and the Ministry of Internal Affairs into the shit, is to simply pretend that there is evidence that is being considered by the court, and trivially drag out the case with the words "more to come."
"But this can't go on forever..."
— Why? Zelensky decided to recuse himself from this case. His task is to drag out the trial as long as possible, until the end of his term. After 2024, investigate for your own health. The court hid behind the fact that there are, they say, dozens of volumes of evidence, they need to "study" them... The jury's term will end, the case will gradually "let go" of the brakes, just like the case of Gongadze, Zaverukha, Buzyna, Handziuk and many others.
— Why were Dugar and Kuzmenko released from custody, but Antonenko was not?
— I can't explain it logically. Kuzmenko's case is no different from Antonenko's. Kuzmenko supposedly "planted the explosives," Antonenko only accompanied her. Kuzmenko has one child, Antonenko has — two, if we are talking about mitigating factors. There is no fundamental difference, except for gender.
It's just that someone needs to be kept in custody to maintain social tension. As Deputy Chief of Investigation Viktor Hunko said in a propaganda film produced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, "if they are kept in custody, it proves their guilt."
— And what is the court's motive for keeping Antonenko in custody?
— None. At least, none who are conscious. They say that the charges are serious, so there is a risk that the accused will escape. However, the European Court of Human Rights directly prohibits using this as the main argument for detention. In European practice, it is generally accepted that the risk (of escape) decreases over time. This is also reflected in our legislation. In particular, it is stipulated that the prosecution must prove each time that the risk has not decreased. And with Antonenko, it is the opposite — They say the risk is considerable, so let him sit out a little longer.
…
Judges
— How would you characterize the court's behavior, to what extent is it impartial?
— I cannot pass a verdict on the bias of the court - that's what the High Council of Justice is for. I can only testify that the court often violates the regulations and refuses to understand the investigation materials.
Contrary to the law, the court does not meet every day, but once a week. At the same time, the presiding judge systematically makes decisions that are difficult to find a basis for in the legislation. For example, she moved the hearing to a closed session - supposedly to guarantee the safety of persons participating in the criminal proceedings.
Once, swear words were indeed thrown at the judge from the courtroom. But judges and prosecutors are not the kind of people whose safety is ensured by the rule of closed sessions. On the contrary, there is a strict requirement for the openness of sessions. And applause and noise are also manifestations of openness.
Moreover, the court's decision to move the sessions to a closed session was already made in a closed session. This is not about safety, it is about one's own comfort. In particular, so as not to look Antonenko's wife and mother in the eye.
— Antonenko, Dugar, and Kuzmenko's defense lawyers complained that they did not have access to all the investigation materials. Has anything changed now?
— No. For example, investigating judge Kristina Konstantinova rejected our request to provide the English original of the conclusion of the British expert "from the move" Ivan Birch on the grounds that it was, allegedly, a "secret of the investigation."
Although, in my opinion, the original of this conclusion may reveal Birch as another “ski instructor”. He is a karate coach, understands biomechanics, oriental martial arts, but not forensics. Therefore, his method is not based on the evidentiary methodology of forensic work, which was officially confirmed to us by Scotland Yard.
We also do not have access to the entire range of materials because the investigation split the Sheremet case into several parts. Case No. 490 (in which Antonenko is involved) Editor's note) concerns only the perpetrators, and the other perpetrators are being sought in case No. 1206. And there, behind the "secret of the investigation," they hide, in particular, the conclusions of the explosives examination of colleagues from the FBI.
When Yulia Kuzmenko's lawyer was finally granted access to case No. 1206, the National Police simply did not comply with the court's decision. And this case may contain data on the origin of an explosive substance, which, like the infamous "Novichok", cannot be bought at a military store or ordered on Ali express.
If you remember, the Ministry of Internal Affairs insisted at a press conference that the explosive found at the scene of the terrorist attack was identical to the one contained in the box from the MON-50 mine seized during the search of Antonenko. They kept quiet about the fact that only a cartridge and shrapnel were found at the scene of the MON-50 mine, while the mine found at Antonenko's house contained a full set of cartridges and shrapnel.
In summary, the Antonenko case is currently purely political — without end or bottom. We can no longer wait for expert consistency and legal grounds. Everyone is stuck in this case. And there is a lack of courage to move stupidly and pull oneself out of this shit by the hair. The example of the “Fortuna” volunteer, who was thrown behind bars a few days ago, shows that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has not drawn any conclusions from the Antonenko case and continues to engage in “self-burial.”
