Six months of excuses: who and how investigated an accident involving Trukhin’s “servant”

A new scandal erupted in Ukraine due to a high-profile accident involving People’s Deputy “Servants of the People” Alexander Trukhinthat took place in August last year. The Ukrayinska Pravda publication published a video of the deputy’s conversation with a patrol policeman during the registration of the accident. “Servant of the people” offered a cop a huge bribe and threatened him with a call Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky. How did the investigation progress from the moment of the accident and why for 5 months the investigators could not find videos from the chest cameras of the police and confirmation that it was Trukhin who was driving the car?

Accident with People’s Deputy Trukhin: the circumstances of the accident

On the evening of August 23, 2021, an accident occurred on the Boryspil Highway in Kiev. Audi A8 crashed into Ford and Daewoo cars. In the Ford was Luciano Luci, head of the referee committee of the Ukrainian Football Association and his translator Roman LishenBoth received minor injuries and underwent surgery. There were two children in the Daewoo who also received injuries. Another 2 people received minor injuries.

According to media reports, Alexander Trukhin, a deputy from the Servant of the People, was driving the Audi. According to eyewitnesses, he was in a state of intoxication, but refused to take the test. The MP himself denied this.

What Trukhin’s assistant said

Surrounded by the people’s deputy, Segodnya was told that the deputy almost never drove a car himself, and at the time of the accident, his driver Roman was driving.

“In my two years of working with Alexander, I have never seen him driving,” he told us one of the people’s deputy’s assistants Yuri Vyust.

What was reported in the Ministry of Internal Affairs

The Ministry of Internal Affairs then confirmed to us that Trukhin was indeed in the car at the time of the accident.

“As a passenger or a driver, this will be established by the investigation. Which, in fact, is being done now,” Artem Shevchenko, then acting speaker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, told Segodnya.

How the police worked

The patrol police of Kiev reported that at the scene, patrol officers and investigators documented all the persons traveling in cars.

“At the time the law enforcement officers arrived, the participants in the accident were near the cars, so it was necessary to establish which of them was driving the car at the time of the accident. The police interviewed the participants in the event and witnesses, seized fingerprints and other material evidence. to establish how fast the car was moving. During the primary investigative actions, one of the witnesses said that a man was driving the Audi, as it turned out later, a people’s deputy of Ukraine. At the same time, other witnesses deny these testimonies”– informed the press service of the department.

RBI investigation

On August 31, the police transferred the case to the State Bureau of Investigation. Minister of Internal Affairs Denis Monastyrsky explained that the investigation of cases involving the people’s deputy falls within the competence of the State Bureau of Investigations.

“I am sure that all the answers to the questions that are available will be received in the near future”– said then the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

However, no replies were received in the near future. After 2 months, the Bureau stated that the investigators had seized a number of video recordings of the movement of cars, which, in terms of recording time, were close to the time of the accident, but there was no actual moment of the accident on these records. The SBI also noted that more than ten witnesses to the incident were interrogated in the case, Trukhin himself was not interrogated, as they were waiting for the results of the appointed examinations.

Another month has passed, and the investigation has not moved forward. In November 2021, the publication “Ukrainian News” sent a journalistic request to the SBI with a request to inform about the progress of the case, to which they received a response that Trukhin had not yet been interrogated, and the results of the examinations had not been received by the investigators.

The State Bureau of Investigation also reported that the Bureau did not receive documents from the police about the examination for the presence of alcohol in the people’s deputy’s blood and about Trukhin’s refusal to undergo an alcohol test.

I was surprised at the lengthy investigation President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. In November 2021, during a press conference, he stated that the examination of the SBI should establish whether deputy Trukhin was driving.

However, a month later, the State Bureau of Investigation did not establish who was driving the car that caused the accident.

“Currently, investigative (search) actions are being carried out in criminal proceedings, aimed, among other things, at identifying the person who was driving the Audi car at the time of the accident”the SBI said in December 2021.

Only in January 2022 did the SBI interrogate Alexander Trukhin. True, the details of the conversation were not reported.

For 5 months since the accident, the investigators have not established who was driving the Audi, and could not find video from road surveillance cameras and patrol body cameras.

Deletion of media information and appeals to Avakov

All this time, Oleksandr Trukhin remained at large and continued his activities as a People’s Deputy of Ukraine. It is curious that in October 2021, 2 months after the accident, Trukhin attended the congress of the Servant of the People party in Truskavets, where he was seen by journalists in the company of Oleg Tatarov, the curator of the power block in the Office of the President.

Journalists who drew attention to the fact that Trukhin was not on the train with other deputies who arrived in Truskavets asked what he had arrived on and whether he himself was driving. The people’s deputy replied that he had come on a bicycle and drove it himself.

A number of media reported that during the investigation into the Trukhin case, information about the accident disappeared from the websites of more than 30 publications or was changed. Several publications reported that they were offered “on a commercial basis” to resolve the issue of removing the publication. In particular, journalist of the project “Zupini Elk” Konstantin Andriyuk said that for deleting the news sites were offered from 200 dollars.

November 2021 former Interior Minister Arsen Avakov in the program People Against with Natasha Vlashchenko on TV channel Ukraine 24, he said that he was often asked not to touch drunken “servants” at the wheel.

“They say to me: ‘Why are the police specifically stopping the deputies from the Servant of the People?’ Why is it so, they tell me that this week there are three deputies – remember, there was a story: one was detained in Lviv, either he ran over someone, or he was drunk. Then another, then a third. I say because it is their job, and you think about how to select deputies so that they are adequate,” – said Avakov, without specifying which of the authorities addressed questions about the people’s deputies of the Servant of the People.

After the Ukrayinska Pravda publication published a video of Trukhin’s conversation with a cop and an offer of a bribe to a law enforcement officer, the State Bureau of Investigation stated that they did not have a video from the police’s service camera.

“Investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation interrogated a police officer whose video from his personal camera was published by journalists. Unfortunately, he did not provide the officers of the State Bureau of Investigation with the information that he told reporters”– said the department, adding that this video will be investigated and attached to the case file.

It is likely that further Trukhin’s case will be transferred from the State Bureau of Investigation to NABU. February 2, 2022 Prosecutor General of Ukraine Irina Venediktova instructed the Anti-Corruption Bureau to register criminal proceedings against the “servant of the people”.

“Without any delay, I gave instructions to register the criminal proceedings. Unfortunately, we are talking not only about participation in an accident. It is clear that there are many more questions to study. NABU determines the jurisdiction”– said Venediktova.

Earlier, the Segodnya website reported that People’s Deputy Alexander Trukhin is dealing with unofficial budgetary issues of the Servant of the People faction. This was stated on the air of the program “Today is the Day” on the TV channel “Ukraine 24” journalist, editor-in-chief of “Ukrainska Pravda” Sevgil Musayeva.

We also informed that President Volodymyr Zelensky supported the statement of David Arakhamia and the Servant of the People party to expel Alexander Trukhin from the party.