The investigation went into a hole. The suspect in the murder of the defense attorney has already been detained Yuri Grabovsky lawyer biography
On the night from Thursday to Friday, the buried body of lawyer Yuri Grabovsky, who defended Russian Alexander Alexandrov in a Ukrainian court, was found in the Cherkasy region. According to investigators, two Ukrainian citizens suspected of his murder confessed and indicated the place of burial.
Who is Grabovsky
Yuri Grabovsky, after receiving his legal education, practiced corporate law and was not associated with politics. The result is a rich clientele, his own office, his own law firm "Grabovsky and Partners", the post of deputy chairman of the Higher Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar of Ukraine.
Now it will probably not be possible to find out exactly what made the successful lawyer take on complex political cases. Although the criminal cases that he began to conduct in 2015 were legally criminal, they were connected with big politics - the civil conflict in the East of Ukraine.
There were two things to do. One is Anastasia Kovalenko, accused of preparing a terrorist act. The second is the case of the so-called “GRU officer” Alexander Alexandrov, one of two Russians detained in the ATO zone last year. Moreover, in both trials, Yuri Grabovsky acted as a free lawyer and defended the accused at his own decision.
Anastasia Kovalenko, who has been under investigation for almost a year, is accused of attempting to organize a terrorist act. According to the defendant’s testimony, when she was moving from Donetsk to Kyiv, an acquaintance asked her to give a package to his friend. While handing over the package, she was detained by officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and explosives were found in the package. Kovalenko was placed in the SBU pre-trial detention center, where, after many hours of interrogation, she confessed.
Aleksandrov and Erofeev, whose trial is currently underway in Kyiv, are accused of participating in a mortar attack, as well as the murder of a soldier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Pugachev.
The two cases are unrelated. With the appearance of lawyer Yuri Grabovsky in both cases, the cases quickly began to fall apart, and the evidence presented by SBU investigators lost procedural force.
The Russian Foreign Ministry sees in the Grabovsky case the growth of totalitarian tendencies in UkraineThe transition to methods of intimidation and physical destruction of dissenters indicates the strengthening of anti-democratic tendencies in Ukraine, which do not fit into European norms of morality and law, the Russian department noted.For example, Yuri Grabovsky proved that Anastasia Kovalenko confessed as a result of brutal violence right in the investigator’s office. The file contains a medical certificate showing signs of beatings. Grabovsky filed a statement demanding that a criminal case be opened. The official version of this incident is as follows: two unknown men in the uniform of the Aidar volunteer battalion entered the SBU building, entered the investigator’s office, beat the suspect, and then left the building unhindered.
The accusations of the Russians Aleksandrov and Erofeev (his case in court is being handled by another lawyer) also began to rattle in court.
Thus, the charge of participating in a mortar shelling of positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) was rejected in court by lawyer Grabovsky, who proved on the basis of witness testimony that the shelling took place at a time when both wounded GRU soldiers, accompanied by AFU fighters, were already heading to the rear.
That is, they could not participate in the shelling in any way.
They also turned out to be not involved in the murder of soldier Pugachev. The weapon they had during their arrest, as Grabovsky proved during the trial, was of a different caliber than the one from which they shot Pugachev.
Circumstances of the lawyer's disappearance
Grabovsky did not come to the next court hearing in the case of Alexandrov and Erofeev on March 9. On the same day, a message appeared on his Twitter page that he had left the country and was in Sharm El-Sheikh. Several more similar messages appeared in the following days.
But Grabovsky was known for his pedantry and responsibility, and such a disappearance seemed strange. In addition, the messages on the social network were full of grammatical errors, which was also not typical for a lawyer. His friends and colleagues found out from the Ukrainian border service that he had not left the country. On March 10, he was put on the wanted list.
And here it turned out that on the eve of his disappearance, Grabovsky drove to Odessa in his car. Later he returned to Kyiv, but not in his car (it was later found in Odessa), and was even in his office, where he was allegedly seen with some man. According to information that has not yet been confirmed, important documents related to the cases he led in court disappeared from Grabovsky’s office.
On the night of March 25, Grabovsky’s body was found in a collective farm garden near the city of Zhashkiv, Cherkasy region. The body of the dead lawyer shows signs of torture, and there is a bracelet with explosives on his leg. According to Ukrainian law enforcement officers, the detainees threatened to blow up the bracelet when Grabovsky tried to report his whereabouts or escape.
According to the investigation, one of the suspects, having left Ukraine, transmitted messages on Twitter from Grabovsky’s phone on his behalf. Money was taken from the lawyer's credit card.
How Grabovsky got into the big international game of Ukraine
According to the military prosecutor of Ukraine Anatoly Matios, the investigation is now considering several versions of the lawyer’s murder. Among them are domestic ones: either it was a banal robbery, or a murder for personal reasons. But Grabovsky had no family and, according to friends, he lived alone.
The version of the robbery also does not look very convincing - they were too diligent in covering up the traces of the crime.
But there are several facts that Ukrainian investigators seem to be ignoring for now.
First. Grabovsky seriously clashed with the SBU when, in the case of Anastasia Kovalenko, he proved the illegality of the confessions extracted from her. Even during a long interrogation at the SBU they tried to label him “separatism.”
Second. Grabovsky has repeatedly said that he received telephone threats from nationalists. He also experienced enormous pressure from his colleagues among those who accepted the “revolution of dignity.” Here's what Grabovsky wrote on Facebook about the interview with his Russian colleague Ilya Novikov, Nadezhda Savchenko's defender:
"An excellent interview with a talented lawyer. Respect to a colleague. Respect to the legal community of the Russian Federation, who did not throw mud at a colleague, who did not label him a Banderaite and a fascist, a traitor to the Motherland, and so on. Our processes are in many ways similar. It is a pity that, in addition to opposing the system , Ukrainian lawyers also have to overcome the negativism of society, which is so eager to reach Europe that along the way it is ready to “cut and kill” lawyers defending those who “are not liked by society.”
Third. Politicians in both Russia and Ukraine have recently talked about the possibility of exchanging Savchenko for Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev - after verdicts were handed down in both cases. Now a new lawyer must enter the case - and this delays the process.
Law enforcement officers, by the way, opened a criminal case against the defender of the second "GRU officer" Erofeev - lawyer Oksana Sokolovskaya in a four-year-old case - about mutilation of her former partner.
But do the Kyiv authorities really need the return of Nadezhda Savchenko? While she is imprisoned in Russia, she is a symbol of struggle. If it returns, the symbol will disappear. Moreover, Nadezhda Savchenko, who in absentia became a Verkhovna Rada deputy from Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party and a PACE member from Ukraine, has already declared her presidential ambitions. In tandem with future Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a longtime opponent of the current President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.
Yuri Grabovsky, who was the lawyer of Russian citizen Alexander Alexandrov, who is being tried in Ukraine as a “serviceman of the GRU of the Russian Federation,” was found dead. He was killed. This was reported by the National Bar Association of Ukraine, which also stated that a murder suspect had been detained.
Lawyer Yuri Grabovsky, who defended Russian serviceman Alexander Alexandrov, who in Ukraine is called involved in the GRU and accused of terrorism, was found dead.
This is reported by the National Bar Association of Ukraine.
“Today we learned tragic news. Lawyer Yuri Grabovsky was found murdered. The suspect in this crime has been detained, and we hope that everyone involved in the murder of our colleague will be punished,” the statement said.
Later it was reported that Grabovsky’s body was found in a populated area near the Kyiv-Odessa highway.
According to Vesti, two people were detained in this case - 19 and 26 years old. The lawyer was kidnapped, his property was stolen, then he was killed and his body was buried.
Yuri Grabovsky
Yuri Grabovsky disappeared in early March.
It is known that on March 5 he was in Odessa, and the next day he returned to his Kiev office. After this, no one saw the lawyer. All his personal belongings were found in the Arcadia Hotel in Odessa, but a post on behalf of a lawyer appeared on his social network page stating that he had left the country for security reasons.
On March 9, a message appeared on Grabovsky’s Facebook with the geotag of the Egyptian Sharm el-Sheikh, which stated that the lawyer had to leave Ukraine “not of his own free will.”
The next day, police in Odessa began to investigate the lawyer's murder, and the lawyer's passport was soon discovered.
The chief military prosecutor of Ukraine, Anatoly Matios, claimed on March 21 that in the case of Grabovsky’s disappearance, a person was detained who “went to Egypt and on behalf of Grabovsky and at the direction of other persons, using Grabovsky’s mobile phone, uploaded photos and made notes on behalf of Grabovsky.”
Another lawyer, Valentin Rybin, began representing Alexandrov’s interests.
Grabovsky’s colleague in the case of Aleksandrov and Evgeniy Erofeev, Oksana Sokolovskaya, wrote on Facebook the next day that the identification of the suspect was unsuccessful: according to her, the detainee “has nothing in common with the male person with whom Grabovsky’s assistant last saw her.”
Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev were detained by the Ukrainian military in May 2015 in the Lugansk region. The detainees claim that they are GRU employees; official Russian authorities deny this. In Ukraine they have been charged with several charges, including terrorism.
From today, in the case of the murder of the GRU lawyer, a new participant is lawyer Igor Tcherezov, his colleague and friend will represent the interests of Yuri Grabovsky’s sister in a criminal case. Let us remind you that they began to look for the lawyer after he failed to appear in court for the hearing of the case of GRU officers Alexandrov and Yerofeyev, and last week the police found the body - according to the testimony of the suspects who kidnapped and killed the lawyer. We asked a few questions to the new lawyer in the case - about the complicated and mysterious history of Grabovsky.
- Now there is a body being identified at the morgue that may belong to Grabovsky. Is this Grabovsky?
I don't know, I didn't see the body. He must be identified by assistants of Oksana Sokolovskaya, Grabovsky’s partner in the case. As far as I know, the body is in poor condition, which is why the identification procedure is being delayed. Most likely, additional examination will be necessary. According to the information I have, the body's face is distorted, possibly burned.
- Can Grabovsky’s partner’s assistants be involved in identification?
Theoretically, anyone can do identification. Grabovsky’s sister left Ukraine 20 years ago, and what’s the point of calling her for identification if they haven’t seen each other for a long time? They saw each other briefly, six months ago, at their mother’s funeral. The body is more likely to be identified by the person who interacted with it every day. My father died in 2004, my mother six months ago. Yura lived in his mother's apartment. Other people who had some kind of relationship with him have not yet emerged. Only those appeared that Yura had not really accepted before, but who are now actively signing themselves up to be his friends.
- How did Grabovsky get involved in the GRU case?
Drum (automatic system for finding lawyers - editor's note), based on the free legal aid system, like Sokolovskaya, by the way.
Let's take a little look at the case of Grabovsky's disappearance. What kind of trip was it to Odessa where the lawyer went?
Yura was just going to a seminar in Odessa. Among other things, he also worked as deputy chairman of the Higher Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar. He often traveled somewhere and met with a huge number of lawyers. He might not even say that he would go somewhere. Moreover, he was appointed relatively recently, last summer, and work on the commission is a new area of activity for him. Grabovsky had to meet a lot of people, so his trip to Odessa was not surprising.
Unfortunately, the SBU video confirmed the version that the lawyers expressed from the very beginning of the search for Yura. The version that Grabovsky, posing for the photo, was in captivity. In particular, lawyer Vladimir Pasechnik, from Odessa, drew attention to her. In addition, upon examining the photo, we found out that it was taken on a Motorola phone with a resolution of 0.5 megapixels. Yura has an iPhone 6. And from the photo you can see that the evening was not particularly successful. He put the jacket on a T-shirt - what the hell.
- Didn’t Grabovsky wear a jacket over a T-shirt?
Not his style. Yura took care of his appearance and dressed neatly, no matter what event he was going to. Yura is a man in a convertible, wearing a white jacket in the summer, but definitely not a T-shirt under the jacket. If a sweater is found among his things now, I will definitely be very surprised. Three weeks ago his sweater disappeared, along with his pistols; he was still very surprised at that time.
- Why did someone need a sweater - explain?
Perhaps for DNA testing? Again, I don’t want to get ahead of myself until the guys have identified his body. But strange things began to happen around this story. The chronology of events in it is greatly disturbed and some episodes very strangely do not coincide.
- For example?
For example, we established that a person without documents was taken to an Odessa hospital. The man introduced himself as Grabovsky. The next day the man is taken from the hospital. Theoretically, this fits with the version of Anatoly Matios (chief military prosecutor - editor's note) that one of the detainees used a fake identity card as an SBU officer. And again it fits with Matios’s version that he was brought to Kyiv against his will under the influence of some kind of drug. Nothing further is clear at all. And there is one more discrepancy with Matios’s words, after which we immediately dismissed the version of him crossing the border - legally or illegally. And they didn’t believe the photographs from Egypt.
- Do you believe the version that Grabovsky’s disappearance was beneficial to the Ukrainian special services?
I don't really believe it. The GRU case was already over. I'm talking about legal procedures. There's really not much work left there. Interrogation of an expert and that's it. Most of the evidence, including Yurin’s widely publicized skull move, which he showed in court, has already been filed in the case. We understand that the positions of lawyers do not always influence the objective decision of judges. There are many examples of high-profile cases where evidence submitted by lawyers is not taken into account by the court at all. Therefore, I would not say that Yura’s principled position in this matter would somehow influence the results of this process.
- It turns out that you rule out the possibility that the possible murder of Grabovsky could have happened on domestic grounds?
The video, which was released by the investigation, virtually excludes the possibility of talking about any other motives for the crime, except those related to professional activities. Perhaps the criminals had two goals. The first is an attempt to intimidate in order to squeeze Yura out of the GRU officers. And the second is robbery. Based on the video, the criminals clearly knew who Yuri Grabovsky was and what business he was involved in. Their goals are clearly understood from the questions to Grabovsky, which are heard off-screen. And then perhaps there was an excess of the performer. People went beyond the instructions to intimidate and began to act according to their own scenario, which led to tragic consequences.
Video: Youtube / Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine
- How big is the role of politics in this matter, from your point of view?
I think it exists in any case, because now they are trying to politicize this matter, but I am not ready to say that these are Russian or Ukrainian special services for one simple reason. I only use information that I am ready to analyze. People dragged Yura from Odessa to Kyiv, which is quite risky in itself. The fact that he was in Kyiv after his trip to Odessa is confirmed by the fact that he was found near Kiev, and not near Odessa. During the journey, a person could run away several times. He could have given some kind of signal - there were a lot of different options for how he could have acted.
According to Matios, he had a bracelet on his leg, which was placed on Grabovsky’s leg with a warning that it would explode if he decided to run.
In any case, a person in such a state should have understood that he was unlikely to be released. Even if there was an imitation of an explosive bracelet, the attackers were clearly preparing for this. The subsequent alleged flight to the same Egypt suggests that the detainees thought through everything very well, but somehow didn’t think it through, which confirms the possible excesses of the perpetrator.
- How correct is it that the military prosecutor’s office will deal with this case in the future?
In theory, no. There is something like a conflict of interest here, but the prosecutor general will decide whose jurisdiction it is. As for me, there is some kind of conflict of interest.
How will this whole story with the possible murder of a GRU lawyer affect the process of exchanging Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko?
No way. The possible exchange is purely political agreements - nothing more. Savchenko will go to serve her sentence if an appeal is not filed, or if she is exchanged for one of the GRUushniks. In order to exchange them for someone, they must be convicted here. That is, we must go through at least several judicial stages - first instance and appeal. We remember that after the first instance and appeal, the decision does not come into force. Then this decision will be political, not legal - in any case. If we talk about jurisprudence, then it turns out that the trial has no effect on the exchange.
- Was Grabovsky threatened before? Did he complain about threats or surveillance?
Complained. The fact is that the day before he was even summoned to the SBU for interrogation. And somehow strange. He is called for interrogation, but he does not enlist the support of colleagues who would go with him under any circumstances. That is, he did not take it seriously, and we found out about the campaign after the fact. I asked: “Yura, why didn’t you say?” He said it was bullshit, nothing serious.”
- Do you believe that Grabovsky may be alive, but the body in the morgue does not belong to him?
I, and all his true comrades, really hope so.
Lawyer of the GRU officer detained in Ukraine, Alexander Alexandrov. Sources from law enforcement agencies told UNN that Grabovsky “was kidnapped, his property was taken over, and his body was buried in one of the settlements along the Kyiv-Odessa highway.” According to his information, two people aged 19 and 26 were detained on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping and murder.
Military prosecutor Anatoly Matios said that in addition to the domestic version of the murder, the option of a “planned kidnapping and murder operation” is being considered.
Grabovsky was known in lawyer circles for taking on scandalous cases. In particular, he was a lawyer. In February 2015, a woman was caught with a bag full of explosives. According to the SBU, the woman was recruited by a Russian GRU officer to carry out a terrorist attack. Kovalenko herself insisted that she did not know about the contents of the bag, allegedly she was simply asked to give the things to friends. The trial in this case is ongoing.
Grabovsky also defended the notorious judge Sergei Vovk, who sentenced former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko to four years in prison.
However, despite numerous requests from the prosecutor's office, the judge was never taken into custody and his period of removal from office was not even extended.
Last spring, Grabovsky took on the case of Russian GRU officer Alexander Alexandrov. According to the human rights activist, he received threats.
BIOGRAPHY
Yuri Grabovsky is a resident of Kiev, born October 25, 1972. Immediately after school, he entered and graduated from Kiev Medical School No. 4. After receiving his diploma, he worked for some time at Children's Hospital No. 9.
In 1992, he began his studies at the Bogomolets Medical University.
1996 -2001 - Advisor to the head of the Moscow District Council of Kyiv on humanitarian and social issues, Advisor to the Minister of Health, member of the Youth Government of Ukraine, assistant consultant to the People's Deputy.
2001 - 2006 – entered and graduated from the Faculty of Law of the National Academy of the State Tax Service of Ukraine.
2006 - 2007 - deputy head of the state executive service in Boryspil and Boryspil region, head of the department for representing the interests of GIS in the courts.
In April 2007, he began private legal practice as head of the Crimean branch of the Kravchenko and Partners law firm.
2007 - 2009 - headed the legal departments of the Crimean regional automobile enterprises of the domestic automaker.
From 2010 to 2013, he served as head of the regional environmental policy department at the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Since July 2013, he has been the main partner of the Grabovsky and Partners Law Firm.
From 2013 to January 2015 - Secretary of the Kyiv Bar Council, graduate student at the Research Institute of Informatics and Law of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine.
Since July 2015 – Deputy Head of the Higher Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar.
In Ukraine, lawyer Yuri Grabovsky, who represented the interests of Russian Alexander Alexandrov, detained near Lugansk, was found murdered (the SBU accuses him of allegedly being an employee of the GRU and participating in hostilities in the Donbass), reports the Ukrainian Bar Association.
On March 9, Grabovsky did not appear at the next meeting of the Goloseevsky District Court. It later turned out that on March 5 he was in Odessa, and after that he returned to his Kiev office. However, the belongings of the missing Grabovsky were found precisely in Odessa, at the Arcadia Hotel. Later, a first-person message appeared on one of his social network pages, saying that the lawyer was forced to leave Ukraine for security reasons. True, Grabovsky’s family and friends immediately stated that they were sure that he did not write this message.
“Today we learned tragic news. Lawyer Yuri Grabovsky was found murdered. The suspect in this crime has been detained, and we hope that all those involved in the murder of our colleague will be punished,” the Bar Association said in a statement.
The death of Grabovsky was confirmed by the chief military prosecutor of Ukraine Anatoly Matios. “Yes, I confirm the death of the lawyer,” he told Ukrayinska Pravda. According to him, the suspect is already confessing. Matios later said that a second suspect had been detained.
According to the prosecutor, Grabovsky was kidnapped in Odessa, after which he was pumped with psychotropic substances and transported to Kyiv, from where he was taken to the city of Zhashkov (Cherkasy region), where he was killed. The body was in the forest 27 km from the city. “We immediately came across the body of the deceased,” Matios said. “Preliminarily, I can say that Grabovsky was killed by force with a firearm. The physical evidence of the two perpetrators was destroyed on the spot,” he added.
According to him, the performers did everything to create the appearance of Grabovsky leaving the borders of Ukraine. Matios also confirmed that one of them had fake documents from Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, a fake Ukrainian passport on the original form.
The prosecutor also noted that one of the suspects said that a bracelet with explosives was attached to the victim’s leg so that Grabovsky would not try to escape: when attempting to escape, the criminals threatened to detonate the device. As Matios emphasized, for law enforcement agencies the presence of such a device has become a curiosity.
A specially planned operation is considered as one of the versions of the murder. “In addition to selfish, domestic and other versions, the investigation is considering the version of a specially planned operation in order to restore the real picture of events, not only on the evidence of individuals about alleged belonging to the special services of one of them,” Matios said.
Grabovsky’s colleagues connected his disappearance with the actions of the Ukrainian special services - the lawyer took a tough position at the trial of Aleksandrov and reported numerous inconsistencies in the case.
It is also known that after Grabovsky disappeared, documents prepared for Alexandrov’s defense also disappeared.
The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed concern over the murder of the lawyer.
“Our worst premonitions came true. The Kyiv authorities, despite all the warnings, were unable or did not want to ensure the safety of Yu. L. Grabovsky. “In Ukraine they clearly do not intend to adhere to legal methods, to put up with the fact that it does not fit into the scheme built by the ruling circles, based on anti-Russian, and sometimes openly Russophobic hysteria,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
