Lawyer: Kolesnikov, witness in Derkach case, never knew Dubinskyi, his testimony has no meaning
The witness who testified against Oleksandr Dubinskyi has never met the People's Deputy.
This was stated by Dubinskyi's lawyer Ivan Martynenko, Censor.NET reports.
The defense lawyer confirmed that the person who testified against Dubinskyi and Derkach is Ihor Koliesnikov, who was convicted under Article 111 (high treason).
According to the lawyer, he speaks about Dubinskyi in the third person.
"In November 2023, he had an "epiphany", which the SBI strangely learned about and took away his testimony, in which he mentioned hearsay, namely Derkach, as indicated in the published protocol, that Oleksandr Dubinsky was related to the Russian MID. At the same time, Koliesnikov neither personally nor through anyone else communicated with Dubinskyi nor was he acquainted with him. He refused to conduct a counter-interrogation, and the investigation also had no desire to conduct it, refusing to allow us to conduct such an interrogation," Martynenko said.
The defense lawyer said that Koliesnikov's ex-wife's house was searched and about $200 thousand was seized, which was arrested by the Pecherskyi court. This was done to prevent him from allegedly changing his testimony.
"For some unknown reason, Koliesnikov has not been serving his sentence in the Kyiv region since November 2023, but is in the Lukianivska pre-trial detention center... Despite the fact that he identifies himself as the organizer of the crime under Article 255 of the Criminal Code, he has not been served with a suspicion and is still in the status of a witness. The content of the published interrogation of Koliesnikov, as you can see, is indirect and does not carry any semantic load," he added.
As a reminder, one of the witnesses in the case previously stated that Dubinskyi, a "servant of the people," acted on the instructions of the MID of the Russian Armed Forces together with Derkach and Sivkovych.
