House arrest conditions were eased for Andriy Antonenko, a suspect in the car bombing that killed Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet in 2016.
The Shevchenko District Court of Kyiv ruled on Sept. 27 to partially grant the prosecutor’s request to preserve the pretrial restriction. However, the court replaced the 24-hour house arrest and mandatory wearing of an electronic bracelet with night house arrest from 23:00 to 06:00. The eased conditions will remain at least until Nov. 27.
Complicated case
Belarusian-born Sheremet, a critic of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, was a well-known journalist whose career spanned his native Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. At the time of his death, he worked as an editor at the Ukrainska Pravda news site and hosted a show on Ukraine’s Radio Vesti.
Indeed, many believe that the evidence shows that investigators should have from the outset focused on the possible involvement of Lukashenko, who last year rigged his re-election and whose security services brutally suppressed public and peaceful protests against him, in Sheremet’s murder.
Sheremet was killed on the morning of July 20, 2016, when his car exploded in the Kyiv city center as he was driving to work. Investigators have alleged that Antonenko, a musician who has fought to defend Ukraine against Russia’s war in the Donbas, and his friend, Yulia Kuzmenko, a doctor who has volunteered to help Ukrainian troops fighting in the conflict, planted the bomb. Yana Dugar, who has served as a nurse in a paratrooper battalion, is accused of aiding in Sheremet’s killing by taking photographs of security cameras near his home.
They deny involvement. Moreover, the case against the three suspects is often criticized as weak and facing collapse. Many members of Ukraine’s civil society have said the case against the trio lacks convincing evidence. Others alleged that former Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who failed to improve the performance of law enforcement during his seven-year tenure, was desperate to charge someone in a bid to hang on to his job.
According to the investigators’ initial version, the suspects “espoused ultra-nationalist ideas, idolized the Aryan race’s greatness” and murdered Sheremet to destabilize the political situation in Ukraine. No proof has surfaced of the suspects’ ultranationalism and many critics don’t see how Sheremet’s murder would destabilize the country. Police changed tack in May and now say that the perpetrators had unknown personal motives and planned the murder as a “high-profile event to provoke major protests.”
Antonenko was initially considered the organizer, but organizers have since been classified as unknown.
KGB links
In January, EUobserver, a Brussels-based English-language publication, and the Belarusian People’s Tribunal, an opposition group run by exiled Belarusian police officer Igor Makar, published a recording of alleged Belarusian KGB officials discussing murdering journalist Pavel Sheremet. The recording was made in 2012, four years before he was killed in Kyiv.
Meanwhile, the suspects’ defense attorneys argued that the new Belarusian evidence refutes the official version since there is no evidence of any links between their clients and Belarus.
There is another link to Belarus in the events preceding Sheremet’s killing.
Read more: Ukrainian judge involved in Sheremet case found dead near Kyiv
On the night before Sheremet’s murder, Sergei Korotkikh, a Belarusian national and member of the Azov volunteer battalion, and other Azov fighters visited Sheremet’s house. The violent and controversial background of Korotkikh, an avowed neo-Nazi, has attracted attention since then. Korotkikh has denied having anything to do with Sheremet’s murder and has called him a friend of his.
