the High Council of Justice (HCJ) received a complaint from prosecutor Viktoria Orshavska against the Supreme Court judges who considered the appeal in the case of former MP Alexander Shepelev, who was accused of bribery to escape from custody and in respect of whom there are other cases with charges of high treason, murder and other crimes. This is evidenced by the data of the report of automated distribution of cases on the VSP website, reports UNN.
as you know, the Supreme Court consists of a panel of judges, which included Korol V. V., Marinich V. K. and Markovets a.m., on July 6, 2023, changed the verdict of the courts of previous instances to MP Shepelev in the case of bribing employees of the pre-trial detention center and hospital in order to escape.
in particular, the Supreme Court panel decided to close one of the episodes of the case concerning bribery, due, in their opinion, to insufficient evidence.
in addition, the judges significantly reduced the term of serving Shepelev's sentence, counting his stay in the pre-trial detention center of the Russian Federation from March 19, 2015 to July 8, 2016. Then Russian law enforcement officers detained him at the extradition request of Ukraine. While the issue of his extradition to Ukraine was allegedly being resolved, Shepelev was supposed to be in a pre-trial detention center. However, Russia still refused to extradite the fugitive MP to Ukrainian justice, citing threats to its own national security.
The board of the Supreme Court also took advantage of the "Savchenko law" and counted Shepelev in the term of serving his sentence while in jail on charges of other cases.
thus, by the decision of the Cassation instance, Shepelev fully served his sentence under the verdict of the Desnyansky District Court of Kiev of August 7, 2020. In addition, due to the closure of episodes about bribery, the ex-MP's property will not be confiscated.
The prosecutor in the case Viktoria Orshavskaya, seeing gross violations committed by the judges, appealed to the VSP with a corresponding complaint.
Recall
in 2014, Shepelev was detained in the case of the murder of four people and the attempted murder of banker Sergei Dyadechko. However, the ex-MP managed to escape from custody through a "hospital scheme". He was hiding in Russia for four years and was detained by Ukrainian law enforcement officers only in 2018. In addition to the case of ordering the murders of five people, Ukrainian courts are also considering cases on charges of Shepelev committing high treason and embezzlement of Rodovid bank funds.