Publication date: 09.05.2024
According to media reports, there have been nearly 11,000 cases of criminal defendants voluntarily mobilizing, after which the courts suspend their cases. This applies not only to those guilty of fatal road accidents or bribery, but also to child molesters and assistants to contract killers.
Having analyzed 400 cases out of the entire pool of cases suspended due to mobilization, we found that about 100 defendants (25%) in these cases committed the crimes charged to them already in the status of military personnel. Of the remaining cases, in 95% of cases, the courts terminated the proceedings after the accused were mobilized. In only 5% of cases did the court refuse to do so. It is important to emphasize that court decisions in such cases are not subject to appeal.
Analysis of the suspended cases shows that they mostly involve theft, drugs, and serious road accidents. Many of the suspended cases involve corruption crimes, such as misappropriation or embezzlement of property, bribery, abuse of office, etc.
"Of course, we cannot say for sure that all the defendants who mobilized are trying to delay the trial. For some of them, this could be a completely natural desire. However, studying some of the cases, there are reasonable suspicions that the newly recruited military personnel are evading punishment in this way.
Not only men are mobilized in such cases. Journalists cite the example of 48-year-old Lyudmyla Yatsenko, a former court officer accused of bribery, who initially avoided court hearings, arguing that in March 2022 she had joined the terrorist defense of the Kozynska ATC in Kyiv region. After NABU detectives found out that the checkpoints where Yatsenko was allegedly on duty had long since been disbanded, her lawyer filed a motion in March 2023 to suspend the case due to her mobilization.
According to the published information, Lyudmyla Yatsenko was mobilized somewhere in Zakarpattia and then became a soldier in a grenade launcher unit. The prosecutor objected to the suspension of the case because he believed that she was simply evading the court, but the case was suspended a year ago and has not yet been resumed. We were unable to get a comment from Yatsenko.
NGL.media also reported that on April 4, during a regular court session, the accused in the fatal accident, judge of the Makariv District Court of Kyiv Region, Oleksiy Tandyr, asked to be released from custody so that he could mobilize.
In support of his words, he provided a letter from the 163rd terrorist defense battalion from Nizhyn stating that they were ready to hire him as deputy company commander for moral and psychological support.
Tandir faces real imprisonment, and the consideration of his case would have been suspended until his demobilization, which is still unknown, and during this time the statute of limitations would probably have expired. However, the court left him in the pre-trial detention center and continued the trial on the merits.
Thus, we can see that the amendments to the current law were adopted taking into account the changes in the requirements of the time and the imposed martial law in Ukraine, as well as the fact that a legal analysis of the situation, analysis of documents and verification of documents by a lawyer and a legal opinion were conducted.
