Prosecutors have not received any documents from the Russian authorities regarding Oleksandr Shepelev, a former MP accused of a series of contract killings, high treason and other crimes, except for the refusal to extradite him. This is stated in the response of the Prosecutor General's Office to the request of UNN.
Details
The Prosecutor General's Office reported that during the pre-trial investigation of his escape from custody, the competent authorities of the Russian Federation were requested to extradite Shepelev to Ukraine to bring the former MP to criminal responsibility. However, Ukraine was denied the request.
"The requested party did not provide any other procedural decisions and documents in this regard, and the prosecution did not attach them to the criminal proceedings," the statement said.
In other words, Ukrainian prosecutors did not receive information about Shepelev's stay in the Russian detention center or his release from custody in Russia.
Recall
A panel of the Supreme Court changed Shepelev's sentence in the escape from custody case and tried to release him. Judges Viacheslav Marynych, Volodymyr Korol and Alla Makarovets decided to close one of the episodes of the case, which concerned bribery, due to what they considered insufficient evidence. As a result, the former MP's property will not be confiscated in this case.
Although, according to experts interviewed by UNN, the judges of the Supreme Court did not have the right to directly examine any evidence. In addition, the judges counted the period of Shepelev's stay in the pre-trial detention center of the Russian Federation as part of the sentence served.
He was detained there at the request of Ukraine's extradition. A year later, Ukraine was denied extradition of the fugitive ex-MP, with Russia arguing that it was a threat to its own national security.
It turned out that Shepelev was valuable to Russia because he was an agent of the FSB and the GRU. The Supreme Court panel also used the Savchenko Law and counted Shepelev's time in a pre-trial detention center on charges in other cases as part of his sentence. The prosecutor appealed the actions of the Supreme Court judges to the HCJ.
According to the automatic distribution, the complaint in Shepelev's case will be considered by the first-ever HCJ member judge who fought at the front against Russia, Olena Kovbiy.
As it turned out, Shepelev also supported and worked for terrorist quasi-republics and considers the Donbas his home and homeland.
Experts interviewed by UNN have previously questioned the objectivity of the Supreme Court's decision, speaking frankly about the corruption component. In particular, according to Mykhailo Zhernakov, Chairman of the Board of the DEJURE Foundation, Supreme Court judges could have received monetary rewards for such a decision.
Political analyst Oleksandr Kochetkov believes that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) should check the integrity of the judgeswho made this decision in the Shepelev case.