Ukrainian lawyers have no special status in Russia - lawyer

Ukrainian lawyers do not have a special status in Russia, so in order to obtain any information, they need to look for a defense counsel in Russia and negotiate with him to obtain the data. However, in court, they will have to prove that the information received is true and accurate. This was stated by Mikhail Ilyashev, the Head of Ilyashev & Partners Law Firm, in an exclusive commentary to UNN.

There is no interstate exchange (of information - ed.). A lawyer can - he has to apply directly there. But from the point of view of the Russian Federation, our lawyer is an ordinary person, he has no special status

According to him, Ukrainian lawyers can try to appeal to Russia through third countries, but first they need to find a Russian lawyer who can make the relevant requests.

Ilyashev noted that such evidence can be reliable if the court examines how the request was made, the form of the response received, and how it was translated.

This may explain the fact that during the trial of the case on the escape from custody of Alexander Shepelev, accused of a series of contract killings, high treason and other crimes, the former deputy-agent of the Russian Federal Security Service, the courts of first instance and appellate courts were critical and did not take into account the photocopies of documents provided by his defense that Shepelev was in a pre-trial detention center in Russia.

The lawyers wanted the courts to take this period into account in the sentence of the former MP, but in court they could not explain the source of the documents and the absence of the originals. However, this did not prevent the Supreme Court panel from accepting copies of documents from the Russian Federation of unknown origin from Shepelev's lawyers, in violation of the CPC of Ukraine, whose authenticity cannot be determined in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The judges of the Supreme Court violated the law by not having the right to examine the evidence at all. Moreover, even if we imagine that the defense, by some miracle, would have managed to legalize documents from Russia in Ukraine, the courts would still not have had the right to count Shepelev's time in the Russian pre-trial detention center.

He was detained at the request of Ukraine, and Ukrainian law enforcement officials demanded his extradition. However, Russia refused to extradite the FSB agent to Ukraine, arguing that Shepelev's extradition could threaten their national security. Since then, the Ukrainian side has had no official information about Shepelev.

Ukrainian law provides that the period of detention in another country can be credited to the sentence served only in case of extradition to Ukraine. As it became known from the response of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to the request of UNN, the prosecution, during the consideration of the cassation appeal against Shepelev's sentence, objected to the inclusion of the period of detention in the territory of the Russian Federation in the total term of his sentence.

Prosecutor Viktoria Orshavska did not deny the fact that the former MP was indeed detained in Russia in 2015 and held under extradition arrest in connection with the consideration of the relevant request of the competent authorities of Ukraine. However, the Russian special services refused to extradite Shepelev to Ukraine, citing his value and threat to Russian national security. Therefore, according to the prosecutor, the time Shepelev was held in custody in Russia cannot be counted towards the total term of his sentence due to the refusal to extradite him to Ukraine for criminal prosecution.

"The documents provided in the cassation instance by the defense (copies of alleged procedural decisions from the case in the Russian Federation) were questioned by the prosecutor as documents of unknown origin, which are inadmissible," the response to the request reads.

Recall

A panel of the Supreme Court changed Shepelev's sentence in the case of escape from custody and tried to release him. Judges Vyacheslav 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. In addition, the judges significantly reduced Shepelev's sentence by crediting him for the period of his stay in the Russian pre-trial detention center from March 19, 2015 to July 8, 2016. At that time, Russian law enforcement officers detained him following an extradition request from Ukraine.

While the issue of his extradition to Ukraine was allegedly being resolved, Shepelev was actively cooperating with the Russian Federal Security Service and was supposed to be held in a pre-trial detention center. A year later, Russia still refused to extradite the fugitive MP to Ukrainian justice, citing threats to its own national security.

The Supreme Court panel also used the Savchenko law and counted his time in the pre-trial detention center on charges in other cases as part of his sentence. Thus, according to the decision of the cassation instance, Shepelev has fully served his sentence under the verdict of the Desnianskyi District Court of Kyiv of August 7, 2020. In addition, due to the closure of the bribery cases, the former MP's property will not be confiscated.

Prosecutor appealed the actions of 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 is fighting on the front against Russia , Olena Kovbiy.  

Recall

Earlier, it turned out that Shepelev was valuable to Russia because he was an agent of the Russian special services. This is evidenced by documents written by him. In particular, an explanatory note to the director of the FSB.  

This is also confirmed by his active position on justifying Russian aggression and the annexation of Crimea, which he expressed during his communication with representatives of the FSB.