A year in the pretrial detention center: Kolomoiskyi’s lawyers summed up the results at a press conference
On September 4, the lawyers of Ihor Kolomoiskyi, who has been in pre-trial detention center for a year, held a press conference during which they expressed a number of claims regarding the validity of keeping their client in custody. Broadcast of the event led TV channel TSN.
Lawyer Oleh Pushkar stated that the court’s decision to keep Kolomoisky in custody was made without sufficient grounds.
“There is such a thing as well-founded suspicion. And a preventive measure can be chosen only if it is present, as well as the risks provided for by the law. But at this time there are no such confirmations.”, – noted Pushkar.
The lawyer cited the example of the Privatbank case, where, in his opinion, the prosecution did not provide any evidence of damages allegedly caused to the bank. He emphasized that the decision to change the preventive measure to a higher bail — almost 4 billion hryvnias — was made on the basis of the NABU statement.
Pushkar also said that the statement from “Privatbank” was submitted only after several months of Kolomoisky’s detention, and the evidence remained unclear.
The lawyer also commented on the new suspicion in the case of “Ukrnafta”, where the amount of losses suddenly decreased from 6 to 2 billion hryvnias, and the very scheme of embezzlement of funds was changed.
“The investigation reached a dead end, so they decided to come up with new charges”, – said Pushkar.
According to him, the purpose of the investigation is not to investigate a crime, but to keep Kolomoiskyi in custody at any cost. The day before, another suspicion was announced to him in a 20-year-old case.
Another lawyer of Kolomoiskyi, Oleksandr Lysak, said that the defense has already appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
“We have received confirmation of the admissibility of our application and will supplement it with other violations,”— noted Lysak, referring to the violation of Articles 3 and 5 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights.
The lawyers concluded that the situation surrounding Kolomoiskyi is an example of manipulation by the investigation and an attempt to fit the accusations to already made decisions.
