On September 9, 2014, Ukrinform held a press conference titled "Telephone Law: How to Sentence Someone to Life." It focused on the case of Sydorenko's father and brothers, who were sentenced to life in prison by the Kyiv-Svyatoshinsky District Court of the Kyiv Region.
On September 11, 2014, a hearing will be held in the High Specialized Court to consider the cassation appeal against the verdict of the Kyiv-Svyatoshinsky District Court of the Kyiv Region dated May 16, 2012, in criminal case No. 14/12 of the convicted father and brothers Sidorenko.
The Kyiv-Svyatoshinsky District Prosecutor's Office appealed the trial court's verdict on the grounds that the trial had been conducted improperly: witnesses had not been questioned, and the court had unreasonably rejected motions. In addition to the prosecutor's office's appeals, there were also appeals from defense attorneys and the convicted men. On April 3, 2013, the Kyiv Court of Appeals reduced the trial court's sentence against the brothers, giving them 13 years in prison each.
The victims disapproved of the sentence change, and together with the prosecutor's office, they filed a cassation appeal. The cassation court overturned the Appellate Court's ruling and remanded the case for a new trial. During the retrial in the Appellate Court, the prosecutor's office abandoned its appeal, and the appellate court ignored the arguments of the defense and defendants' appeals. It also ignored health certificates for Viktor Sidorenko, who is ill and has been diagnosed with Hepatitis C, and prison records for Dmitry Sidorenko, whom prison authorities recommended for early release in 2016. It upheld the Kyivo-Svyatoshinsky Court's verdict, upholding it.
Sidorenko's father and brothers understand that they must be punished for their actions, but they demand a fair trial, as in reality, they were sentenced to life imprisonment not without outside interference, but directly due to the chairman of the Brovary City and District Court of the Kyiv Region, V.A. Vasilishin, who is a party to the case.
Lyudmila Ivanovna Radionova, a lawyer with the Kyiv Shevchenkivskyi District Bar Association, discussed the operation of the telephone law. She explained that the application of this law became clear after the trial court. It appeared that the court had reversed its decision overnight. Lyudmila Ivanovna noted that the secrecy of deliberations and the independence of judges are the cornerstones of justice, but in this case, this secrecy was violated, confirming the existence of the telephone law. In her view, imposing capital punishment on people who pose no danger to society is cynical and a mere act of revenge on the part of the victim's brother, V.A. Vasilishin, Chairman of the Brovary District Court of the Kyiv Region.
As Lyudmila Radionova noted, the judges' bias is easy to prove: "You don't need to be a lawyer or an attorney here. There's a huge, multi-volume case that's been heard for a very long time, but the trial judge only gives the lawyers and their clients one day to review the court record. This speaks volumes about the judge's bias and their attitude toward the case and the convicted persons," she said.
In this context, it's worth citing the words of Oleh Levitsky, a lawyer and head of the public reception office of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union on Human Rights. The Sydorenko family also sought legal representation there. In his article, Oleh Levitsky, discussing why Ukrainian judges impose life sentences approximately six times more often than Russian judges, speculates: perhaps our judges are more intolerant of murderers? Could it also be that they are more ruthless than their Russian counterparts? No! In this regard, I can't help but recall two cases: Lozinsky and Demishkan.
Lawyer Natalia Alpatyeva revealed that V.A. Vasilishin, Chairman of the Brovary City and District Court of the Kyiv Region, initially attempted to influence the investigation and then the courts. She presented a petition to the Shevchenkivsky District Department of the Kyiv Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs from Valeriy Oleksandrovich Vasilishin, filed long before the trial, in which he confirmed that his brother had borrowed large sums of money and not always repaid them. However, Valeriy Vasilishin, on the third day after the Sidorenko brothers were charged with a crime, specified the nature of the crime in this petition, proving his desire to influence the investigation. She also noted that a life sentence was initially envisaged for only one of them, as it was clear that by the end of the case, the judge had already drawn his conclusions and already knew the sentence. Based on his conclusions, he ordered a special escort for only one person. He then told the escort commander that the Sidorenko brothers would each receive ten years. But in fact, he issued a different verdict, which surprised both the head of the convoy and indirectly proved that telephone law exists, since he changed his decision overnight without warning the head of the convoy.
Natalia Alpatyeva read excerpts from the aforementioned petition to the press, in which Vasilishin stated that his brother had borrowed large sums of money from relatives, averaging $80. "Serhiy Mykhailovych Voznyuk, a judge of the Boryspil City and District Court of the Kyiv Region, also lent money on numerous occasions throughout 2008-2009," she quoted from the petition.
The mother of the convicted men also spoke at the press conference, telling the story of how the judge's brother, who was close to their family and a friend of their older brother, later persuaded them to take out a loan to start a joint business. She also claimed that the crime was partly provoked by the deceased, as he refused to repay the money. "He lent large sums of money. This is contained in the testimony of his brother, Vasilishin. It turns out that relatives, parents, uncles, aunts, and even Vasilishin's colleague, the head of the Boryspil court, lent him money," the mother said. "I don't condone what my ex-husband did, but we were robbed of more than 250 hryvnias, and his behavior provoked this crime," she continued.
So far, only the father has admitted guilt. The older brother, Viktor, has partially admitted guilt, while the younger brother, Dmitry, has pleaded not guilty because, as he claims, he was not at the scene of the crime.
As Oleh Levitsky, a lawyer and head of the public reception office of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union on Human Rights, succinctly noted in his article, the case materials contain two versions of the events of that night, neither of which, as is often the case with our justice system, is the truth. On the one hand, there are confessions coerced under torture from the younger Sidorenkos, which, in fact, form the basis for all procedural decisions in the case, including the verdict. On the other hand, there are the defendants' explanations in court, which differ significantly from the original ones.
Conflicts and the Law
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