You're reading: Son of Yanukovych ally could face retrial for murder

On May 31 the High Specialized Court on Civil and Criminal Cases overturned the verdict of a criminal court that gave a suspended sentence to the son of President Viktor Yanukovych’s ally for organizing and committing a gruesome murder in 2007.

The court sent the criminal case for re-examination to be heard by a lower court once a new investigation into the murder is completed.

On the same day, parliamentary lawmaker Volodymyr Pylypenko, who sits on the legislature’s justice commission, called on the government body that hires and fires judges to remove the judge that ruled in the murder case from the bench.

“These circumstances and the fact the convicted Serhiy Demishkan is the son of the head of the state agency of highways of Ukraine gives grounds to assume that the Judge Volodymyr Yeremenko in the criminal proceeding was prejudiced and biased,” said lawmaker Pylypenko.

Demishkan remains free while his two co-conspirators are currently serving time in jail.

On Sept. 21, 2007, 62-year-old Vasyl Kryvozub was kidnapped, tortured for three days and had vodka forced down his throat. His alleged assailants tied an iron radiator battery to his back and tossed him over a bridge into a Dnipro River canal with the words: “Say hello to [Jacques] Cousteau!”

But just as outrageous, according to those who have watched the five-year investigation into the case, is what happened to the three co-conspirators in Kryvozub’s murder.

The toughest conviction, for intentional murder, went to the youngest defendant, Oleksander Kudrin, who was given a seven-year prison sentence. Another accomplice, Serhiy Levchenko, was convicted of lesser charges, including kidnapping and concealing a crime, and got five years in prison. It it were not for today’s verdict, his prison termwould’ve ended this year.

The lightest conviction and punishment went to the alleged ringleader, Serhiy Demishkan, whose family has close ties to President Viktor Yanukovych.

Yet, after reading the verdict in a closed hearing on Nov. 13, Kyiv Oblast Baryshivsky District Court Judge Volodymyr Yeremenko told journalists that “there was no intent of premeditated murder…. They wanted to take him (Kryvozub) to a notary public … Maybe there was careless manslaughter in their actions.”

The Baryshivsky District Court also showed compassion by considering a medical certificate that stated Demishkan is terminally ill with a form of plasma cell cancer in its verdict.

The 41-year-old Demishkan confessed to the murder, but then recanted. In the end, he was convicted of kidnapping, concealing a crime and other lesser offenses, but not intentional murder.

Demishkan has remained free with a suspended sentence – he was set free in an earlier trial on Dec. 29, 2010 when a Kyiv appellate court judge ordered an additional investigation in the case. Ostensibly, the court granted Demishkan lenience because of health problems – he provided a medical certificate saying he suffered from cancer.

But critics think the true leniency came because of his connections to Yanukovych.

Demishkan’s father is Volodymyr Demishkan, head of the state roadway service Ukravtodor, and reportedly a hunting buddy of Yanukovych.

The father could not be reached for comment, but has previously denied interfering on his son’s behalf. The president’s press service said in February that the "president of Ukraine neither influences judicial sentences nor police investigations." The press service added that it didn’t know the nature of Yanukovych’s relationship with Volodymyr Demishkan.

The older Demishkan is believed to be a co-founder of Dom Lesnika, the company that owns 17.5 hectares of prime hunting ground in the Vyshorod District of Kyiv Oblast, north of Yanukovych’s lavish Mezhyhiria estate, according to news media investigations. Yanukovych is an avid hunter and reportedly uses the hunting ground.

Whatever the reason, the case was cited as the latest egregious example of injustice in Ukraine’s broken criminal justice system, where political opponents of Yanukovych are given severe jail sentences for dubious crimes while allies of the president get off lightly for serious crimes – murder included.

“This isn’t the sentencing of Serhiy Demishkan, this is the sentencing of the judicial system,” Andriy Mamaliga told the Kyiv Post in February, the lawyer for the family of the murder victim, a Soviet Afghan war veteran. “The verdict will enter the annals of judicial and prosecutorial arbitrariness.”

The verdicts and sentences were even too much for the Kyiv Oblast prosecutor’s office.

On Jan. 31, prosecutors appealed Serhiy Demishkan’s “light sentence,” its website read. “Grounds for appealing this judgment were the disparity between the sentencing and the severity of crimes. The High Specialized Civil and Criminal Court of Ukraine will inspect the sufficiency of punishment handed out,” according to prosecutors.

Questions were raised about the presiding judge early on. A TVi news report said the judge, Iryna Hryhoryiva, who ordered additional investigation into the case in December 2010 was later promoted to the newly created High Specialized Civil and Criminal Court headed by former Party of Regions member of parliament Leonid Fesenko.

A May 13, 2008 indictment approved by Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka, then a deputy, sheds light on the crime.

Serhiy Demishkan confessed to police early on, reportedly drawing a map that located where Kryvozub’s body was tossed into the water.

According to the indictment, Serhiy Demishkan and Kryvozub were involved in a $46,000 business dispute over the lease of an airplane from Kryvozub’s company.

Kyvozub, the indictment read, was kidnapped with the intent of being coerced to signing a contract to hand over an airplane at a price favorable to Serhiy Demishkan.

On Sept. 19, 2007, following days of surveillance, the indictment alleges that Kryvozub was kidnapped after work in Kyiv, taken to a summer cottage where he was handcuffed to a bed inside a military vehicle, had copious amounts vodka forced down his throat, has his thyroid cartilage fractured and two ribs broken prior to drowning.

But the case was marked by testimonies that changed substantially and Serhiy Demishkhan’s recanted confession.

Kyiv Post staff writers Mark Rachkevych and Vlad Lavrov can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].