Sheremet murder trial suspended as two suspects serve in the army

The Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv suspended the trial in the case of journalist Pavlo Sheremet's murder involving Andriy Antonenko, Yuliya Kuzmenko, and Yana Dugar, because Antonenko and Dugar are in the army.

Antonenko's lawyer, Dmytro Kruhovy, reported this to Ukrinform.

"Yana and Andriy are in the army. Yana, in particular, was drafted in 2022. Yana and Andriy are serving in the army, they perform missions in the very combat area, and because of this they don't always have the opportunity to attend court hearings, that is why a petition was filed (by the defense. – Ed.) to suspend the proceedings. And today the court granted (it. – Ed.) the petition by a defender, Denys Lomanov, to stop (the trial of this case. – Ed.),” he noted.

Kruhovy also noted that in 2022, the composition of the court which previously considered this case, was unable to continue their work for a long time.

"Some of the jurors left abroad. One of the jurors was mobilized. And seeing as the composition of the court has changed, the trial started over from the very beginning. And now it's 2024 already, and we haven't reached the stage (of trying the case. – Ed.), we haven't even started at all," the lawyer said.

As IMI reported, Pavlo Sheremet died in a car explosion in Kyiv on July 20, 2016. On December 12, 2019, the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov announced that the National Police had detained and reasonably notified of suspicion those involved in the murder of Pavlo Sheremet. Currently, among the suspects are Sergeant of the Special Operations Forces Andriy Antonenko (Riffmaster), military medic Yana Duhar, and volunteer Yulia Kuzmenko. In January 2022, the court left Antonenko and Kuzmenko under night house arrest, and Duhar was released on bail of UAH 168,160. They claim no involvement in the murder and consider the prosecution to be politically motivated.

Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion the penalties for all convicts have expired, as no court hearings were being held.

In September 2023 it was reported that the trial on the murder of journalist Pavlo Sheremet would start over, because the composition of the court had changed.