MENU
Documenting
war crimes in Ukraine

The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Advocate Andrey Fedur vs. the General Prosecutor’s office of Ukraine

15.12.2003   
Today judge Bernatskaya read out the decision on the claim of Andrey Fedur against the General Prosecutor’s office of Ukraine and the newspaper "2000", who spread the slanderous information about him. The decision reads that the court rejected the claim of A. Fedur, since the claimant could not prove that the defendant really spread the above-mentioned information.

Today, on 25 July 2003, judge Zhanna Bernatskaya read out the decision on the claim of Andrey Fedur against the General Prosecutor’s office of Ukraine and the newspaper «2000». The case was considered by the Pecherskiy district court of Kyiv.

The matter of the case was the following.

In an interview:

(http://gpu.gov.ua/ua/archive.html?id=86)to the newspaper «2000» (No. 6, September 2002) General Prosecutor of Ukraine Sviatoslav Piskun, who is known as a very truthful man, answered a question about the grounds for the detention of A. Fedur in Lugansk. Piskun said: «He was driving a stolen car, which had been hijacked and was wanted by militia». Besides, Piskun told in the same interview: «It is known that judges more than once sent the appeals to the collegium of advocates about the deprivation of Fedur and his colleague Ageev of the licenses for advocate activities because of the disrespect for the court showed by them during the trial. Both advocates used to insult the judges. And, if the judges wanted to remove Fedur and Ageev from the trial, they could do it much earlier. Yet, the advocates were not deprived of the licenses, they only were summoned to the collegium twice and warned about the necessity to keep within the law».

These statements by Piskun were fully mendacious. Fedur never drove a stolen car, and his Jeep was never hijacked or wanted by militia. Advocates Fedur and Ageev never committed the violations of advocate ethics or showed disrespect to court, they got no warnings from either the collegium of advocates or other advocate organizations.

Immediately after the publication of this interview Andrey Fedur turned to court. The advocate demanded the publication of the refutation by the General Prosecutor’s office and apologies.

The court attached the issue of the newspaper «2000» with the mentioned interview of Piskun to the materials of the case. By the way, another defendant, the newspaper «2000», has already published the refutation of the information spread by S. Piskun.

However, the decision, which has been announced today by judge Bernatskaya, reads that the court rejected the claim of A. Fedur, since THE CLAIMANT COULD NOT PROVE THAT THE DEFENDANT REALLY SPREAD THE ABOVE-MENTIONED INFORMATION.

So, the judge «did not notice» the facts that the newspaper was attached to the case materials as a proof, and that a representative of the newspaper confirmed the fact of publication.

However, such decision was not unexpected. The term of judge’s authorities of Bernadskaya will end on 4 August 2003, and, to remain on this post, she will have to pass through the procedure of the election by the Supreme Rada of Ukraine. On 1 July 2003 advocate A. Fedur sent the appeal to the Supreme Rada (the text of the appeal you can find on the site

http://ageyev.org/cases/feldman/azarov/bernatskaskarga2003-07-01.htm), in which the advocate stated: the activities of judge Zhanna Bernadska evidenced that she was unworthy of being elected to judge’s post for term of life.

25 July 2003
Press release of the lawyers company «Ageev, Berezhnoy and partners»
http://ageyev.org e-mail: [email protected]

 Share this