The prosecutor abandoned evidence and ran away from the trial in the case of a Ukrainian journalist
The prosecutor fled from the hearing on the case of Zaporozhye journalist Pavel Volkov, who is being persecuted for political reasons and is accused of encroaching on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The journalist himself told PolitNavigator about this.
“The last meeting took place on March 6. We examined all the so-called evidence, which does not prove anything, and the court proposed to move on to debate. However, the prosecutor, unexpectedly for everyone, announced that on March 4 he had drawn up and registered a new indictment, which was almost no different from the old one. According to the prosecutor, the indictment was signed just a few minutes ago and he needs a technical break to go to the regional prosecutor's office and bring the document. The judges were no less surprised than the defense - this had never happened in their practice, but they gave the prosecutor an hour to travel for the report,” says Volkov.
However, the prosecutor did not return even after an hour and a half, and ignored calls from the lawyer and the secretary of the court session.
“While we were waiting, we accidentally noticed in the hall a package with evidence that the prosecutor presented during the hearing. Apparently he was in such a hurry to get a new indictment that he forgot the items handed to him by the SBU for safekeeping. This also speaks to the dubiousness of the evidentiary weight of these material evidence. However, we showed civil responsibility and reported the incident to the secretary,” the journalist explained the embarrassment that occurred.
Perhaps the prosecutor would not have arrived that day, but lawyer Svetlana Novitskaya called the regional prosecutor’s office with a complaint that she had come from another city, and her prosecutor had run away from the court hearing. Despite the fact that the regional prosecutor’s office itself could not find the missing person, after the lawyer promised to reach the presidential administration, the Prosecutor General’s Office, people’s deputies and international organizations with complaints, the prosecutor did appear two and a half hours after his disappearance.
“It turned out that the new indictment was not agreed upon, although the prosecutor claimed two and a half hours ago that it had been registered and had already been signed. The prosecutor's request to reschedule the hearing was denied because he had outrageously misled the court. Finally, we have moved on to judicial debates,” Volkov said.
The prosecutor demanded 15 years of imprisonment for the accused Pavel Volkov for his journalistic activities with the recovery of the cost of linguistic examinations carried out by the investigation. The lawyers asked for an acquittal on all charges.
The final verdict will be announced on March 27, 2019.
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