With Defendant in the Dock, the Aleksandrov Case Drags On

As the train came to a halt at the Slovyansk railroad station, I stepped into a nasty drizzle. The court session was to begin at 10 a.m. Not to miss anything, we went to the courthouse well in advance to see Denys Kozhenovsky, cameraman of the Luhansk-based Efir-1 Television Company. He had accepted the request of Reporters Without Borders and the Aleksandrov family to film the whole trial.

As we approached the courthouse, we saw more and more riot police. The court house looked gloomy and bleak. Although the room had about fifty seats, far more people came. The guardians of public order brought more benches. The Slovyansk city court had never seen such a large number (nine) of video cameras. The numerous newspaper journalists sat down behind the cameras in uniform rows. Everybody was waiting for the start.

Everything began with a policeman checking the strength of the defendant’s lockup. He jerked on the iron bars and lifted the flooring (maybe checking if there was a trap door? On second floor?). At last everything was ready for the beginning of the final phase in the Aleksandrov case.

The defendant was brought into the room. Very lean (although those who had seen him before claimed Yury Verediuk had even gained weight in his pretrial cell), with delicate hands and continuously running eyes, he did not look like a man of great physical strength.

The very physique of defendant Verediuk called into question his involvement in the crime. As is known, Ihor Aleksandrov was mortally wounded in the head with a single stroke of a baseball bat, which only a physically very strong man could do. When the guard locked the cage after the defendant and began to take the handcuffs off Verediuk, a German shepherd outside broke into a furious bark.

The panel of judges appeared at 11:40. Judge Ivan Korchysty apologized for being late, putting it down to traffic problems. It was decided to conduct the trial in Russian. They began with identifying the defendant. He was born in 1957, is an ethnic Ukrainian, has two children as well as two convictions in 1995 and 1997. Had no permanent residence before being detained. Had been held in custody since August 23, 2001. Mr. Verediuk confirmed this completely.

Next, Judge Korchysty read out Verediuk’s written petition to the court. Consider some extracts from the defendant’s plea:

“I have given honest and trustworthy testimony. I hope for a not terribly severe sentence because I did not want to kill anybody, especially a journalist. I just wanted to frighten the defense attorney. But, watching television, listening to the radio, and reading newspapers, I saw that my case had taken an unintelligible political turn. Newspapers and television call me drug addict, bum, degraded, distort my name, insult me, and more.”

It will be recalled that the defendant asked in an earlier petition (which The Day has previously reported) to install technical aids in the courtroom and his cell as well as to change his defense attorney and judge.

The defendant’s three petitions were supplemented with one from People’s Deputy Anatoly Khmeliovy, chief of the parliamentary commission investigating the Aleksandrov affair, asking permission for commission members to see Mr. Verediuk in person.

To discuss the petition, the panel, except for Judge Korchysty, retired to an adjoining room. During the recess, we managed to speak to a lady for whom Verediuk had recently worked. He helped her tend a vineyard: he watered the vines, watched, and brought chalk from the quarry. Asked if he could take a stick and kill a man who had done him no harm, she said, “I don’t know whether or not, but, judging by the way he worked, he couldn’t. He was too weak. I am so distressed over his destiny.”

The trial went on. The people’s assessors (lay judges in Ukrainian courts — Ed.) decided to meet two motions by the defendant: to install technical aids and dismiss defense attorney Diana Zyma. It was decided to send a copy of the decision to the Ministry of Justice so that it solve the problem of technical aids in the courtroom. They refused to dismiss Judge Korchysty and declined the investigative commission’s petition because Yury Verediuk himself refused to see the commission members. Then the court was adjourned with the same panel until March 4 at 11:30. This decision of the court evoked surprise among the audience.

In the corridor, one of the people’s assessors congratulated the now former counsel Diana Zyma and said she was lucky.

The court session over, Anatoly Khmeliovy, chief of the ad hoc investigative commission, commented on the situation to The Day : “I think the defendant’s motions were prepared well in advance. To my mind, he was putting pen to paper under somebody else’s dictation. And I also think the trial is being postponed on purpose. Even if they choose to continue the trial, they’ll do it summarily and, what is more, after the parliamentary elections. Judging by the documents we have already perused, Yury Verediuk was made to speak under a certain duress.”

Asked why the investigative commission members were denied permission to see the defendant, Mr. Khmeliovy said, “Under the current Constitution, our investigative commission cannot be furnished with special prosecutors who could help us. We are being excluded from the trial.”

Oleksiy Shekhovtsov, a commission member, added, “There are officers of the court who must see the defendant whether or not they want to and there are persons whom he can only meet if he wishes. It is important in our case that the defendant himself does not want to see us. Law enforcement bodies must make an all out effort to look into this case. The investigative commission clearly lacks the power to do so.”

Those present in the courtroom got the impression that some influential forces, first, are doing their best to postpone the trial and, secondly, trying to have the accused homeless Verediuk pronounced guilty by any and all means (He seems to have agreed to being a bum and finds nothing insulting in it). In other words, they are trying yet again to wash the political coloring off a case of murder where a journalist was the victim, by adding a criminal tint to it. And, also again, the public sees it being done clumsily.

P.S. The author thanks the Institute of Mass Information and representative of the international human-rights organization Reporters Without Borders for assistance in writing this article.