Serbian court returns ex-SSU General Naumov's case for new trial
Kyiv • UNN
The Serbian Court of Appeal overturned the sentence of former SBU General Andrei Naumov, who was sentenced to one year in prison, and returned the case for retrial to the lower court in Niš.
The first-instance verdict, which sentenced former SBU General Andriy Naumov to one year in prison in September 2023, has been overturned by the Court of Appeal in the Serbian city of Nis. According to the Balkan service of Radio Liberty, the case against Naumov was returned to the court in Nis for a new decision, UNN reports .
Context
In early June 2022, former Ukrainian intelligence officer, former SBU General Andriy Naumov, was detained in Serbia along with German citizen Alexander Axt, who was found to be in possession of hundreds of thousands of euros. On September 29, 2023, a court in Nis, southern Serbia, sentenced to one year in prison on money laundering charges.
On February 14, the Court of Appeal in the Serbian city of Nis overturned the verdict that sentenced former high-ranking official Naumov to one year in prison, and the case was returned to the court of Nis for a new decision, Radio Liberty reports.
Recall
Andriy Naumov started working for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in 2019. In 2021, he was fired by the then-head of the agency, Ivan Bakanov. Naumov left Ukraine on the eve of Russia's full-scale invasion.
In Ukraine, Naumov's name began to be associated with the case of high treason against the former head of the Crimean SBU, Oleg Kulinich, but the case of high treason against him was never opened in Ukraine due to a lack of evidence.
Ukraine sent Serbia a request for Naumov's extradition in mid-October 2022, and the Court of Appeal refused to extradite the former head of the SBU's Main Internal Security Department to Ukraine.
The ex-intelligence officer was at the center of journalistic investigations related to corruption, smuggling of money and other valuables abroad: in 2020, Schemes revealed Naumov's real estate, which did not correspond to the declared income of the civil servant.
