On April 20, at the court hearing in the “Sheremet case” in the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv, a video from an urgent search of the apartment of special forces officer and musician Andriy Antonenko “Riffmaster”, accused of organizing the murder of a journalist, was shown. The Sheremet case: what the video of the search with the seizure of T-shirts with “nationalistic prints” shown in court testified The search took place on December 12, 2019 in a one-room communal apartment on Starovokzalnaya Street, owned by Antonenko’s wife. The demonstrated video contradicts the statements of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who said that “the suspect lived in an elite apartment in an elite area.”
Prosecutor Mykhailo Tishin refused to explain the evidentiary value of the seized T-shirts and caps with prints. But, let us recall, it was precisely because of these “nationalistic” pictures that Rif was initially “identified” as the “murderer of Sheremet” and the “cultivator of the greatness of the Aryan race.” And this was announced to the whole country. What did the court see in the discovered prints and can they be considered evidence of Antonenko’s involvement in the murder?
Objective: to save physical evidence
During the search on 12.12.2019, the investigation wanted to find the instrument of the crime. The court decision allowed the seizure of clothing with prints, laptops, phones, weapons, explosives, detonators and other items that could contain information about the commission of a crime. The document stated the following reasoning: “Antonenko held radical views while fighting in the Joint Forces, and also knows how to handle explosives.” According to the lawyers, employees who were not authorized to conduct this investigative action and were not listed in the report were present during the search. Instead, the prosecutor appealed: the investigator is not prohibited from involving other participants in the proceedings, which is why he involved the head of the pre-trial investigation body, a specialist and criminal investigation officers in the search. All participants listed in the search report were recorded on video. Why were printed T-shirts and caps seized from Antonenko? The prosecutor referred to video from surveillance cameras, in which Sheremet's killer was allegedly dressed in a printed sweatshirt and "had a cap-like headdress." According to prosecutor Mykhailo Tishin, the investigation established that it was Antonenko. At the same time, Tishin refused to answer the lawyers' questions on the basis of which expert studies the investigators established that the prints on Antonenko's clothes and the alleged killer match? According to lawyer Stanislav Kulik, it is obvious that the examinations conducted at the request of the investigation indicate that the print does not match, and no traces of explosives were found on the clothes.
The defense attorney argues that these expert opinions were not provided by the defense and were not sent to court, as they refute the investigation's version of the perpetrators. "Three different T-shirts were demonstrated by the top state leadership at a briefing, only one of them was confiscated from me. National Police General Koval also showed different T-shirts as one print and emphasized: "You are already familiar with these individuals who have previously committed crimes." Neither I, nor Dugar, nor Kuzmenko have ever committed them, this is a lie and manipulation by the prosecution," commented the accused Andriy Antonenko. Attorney Taras Bezpaly also said: within 24 hours, the prosecution authorities did not impose an arrest, did not return the temporarily seized property. "The search results are zero, and the evidence obtained is inadmissible. Also, the protocol for examining the flash drives bears the signature of the investigator, who was not present during the search. How can the court identify that this "The original, not copies? The investigative judge's ruling on the search granted the right to search only to the investigator. The investigative judge is not obliged to determine the number of people, but in this ruling he clearly determined, so the other investigators actually committed a crime - illegally entered Antonenko's apartment," - commented lawyer Bezpaly. However, according to the prosecutor, there were no violations. "The seized items and documents are included in the list prescribed in the ruling on the search permit. Clothing with prints was seized on the basis of the ruling. It is material evidence," - explained prosecutor Tishin.
Does the search of Antonenko confirm the presence of a motive to kill Sheremet?
“The whole country has just inspected the tiny communal apartment of Andriy Antonenko, where he lived with his wife and children, but no traces of “admiration for the greatness of the Aryan race” were noticed. Those prints (on the found T-shirts – “N”) are completely different. How could a picture of a woman in a cabaret print style be identified with “the greatness of the Aryan race”? The defense and society want to understand the motive. In May, it changed, that is, it disappeared altogether,” appealed lawyer Vitaliy Kolomiyets, referring to the amended text of Antonenko’s indictment, which no longer contains the infamous words “being carried away by ultra-nationalist ideas, cultivating the greatness of the Aryan race…”. Defendant Riff, in turn, told how, in his opinion, the motive of “the greatness of the Aryan race” appeared in this case. “Investigator Khatynsky was in the case of [Vita] Zaverukha, where it was written down verbatim a similar motive for committing the crime. When I asked the investigators about the motive, they replied: “Don’t worry, Andryukha, we picked this up from another case.” Once I asked investigator Nikitchenko why I was sitting, she replied: “Because you’re a Nazi!”. It deeply shocked me. I showed her my tattoo on my leg – Prometheus with the Star of David. Imagine her reaction… That’s the story,” says Antonenko.
Bad move with bad play
The meeting also showed a video about how exactly the police discovered the mock-up of the MON-50 mine that belonged to Antonenko. The fact is that the law enforcement officers themselves did not find the mock-up during the search. Lawyer Kulyk explains this: when the user of the premises that had previously been searched arrived, they pressed on him, and he showed them the mock-up of the mine that Andriy had previously demonstrated during his training at the sergeant's courses. "Since it is impossible to conduct a search twice, we conducted an "inspection" with which we tried to legalize the evidence," the lawyer explained. "When we were analyzing the damage to Pavlo [Sheremet] himself, which led to his death, and the damage to the car that was blown up, we paid attention to the elements of the MON mine at the crime scene. But on the case that was found with Andriy, all these elements are present, there is no shortage. It is understandable, because the case was used as a training mock-up, empty inside, but similar to a live mine "Something like this 'half of the Ministry of Education' is probably not the right half of the Ministry of Education," says the accused Yulia Kuzmenko. She emphasizes that both Rif's and her accusations are "absurd."
Returning to the “false alibi”
Judge Oksana Golub was unable to view the disc containing the video recording of the testimony of witness Oleksiy Yermilov, who provided a false alibi for Antonenko on December 13, 2019, because it turned out to be empty. Yermilov had previously stated that Andriy Antonenko was teaching him how to play the guitar when Sheremet was killed. Later, Yermilov admitted that he had mixed up the dates. However, the prosecutor did not plan to show the video of Yermilov's interrogation, where he admits to his confusion. The prosecutor's office is still justifying the motion to extend his detention with this false alibi. Therefore, the risk of influencing witnesses to change their testimonies is allegedly relevant. "The investigation has no evidence that Antonenko asked to create a false alibi for himself. At that time, he was already a prisoner. These are fabrications of the pre-trial investigation body, not supported by any evidence," emphasized lawyer Dmytro Krugovyi.
Text and photo by Kateryna Petrenko
Source: https://novynarnia.com/2021/04/20/sprava-sheremeta-prynty/
