The court in Bashtanka requested that the case concerning the murder in Pliushchivka be taken away from them due to a lack of staff — the appeal court rejected the request

The village council building where Svitlana Vanzhula was murdered. Photo: Mykolaiv Regional Police Headquarters

The Mykolaiv Court of Appeal has refused to transfer the case of Viktor Prokopchuk, the village head of Plyushchivka, who is accused of murder, to another court. The Bashtanka District Court will continue to hear the case.

This is according to a ruling by the Mykolaiv Court of Appeal dated 11 August, as reported by NikVesti.

It should be noted that the indictment was submitted to the court on 10 August. However, the Bashtanka District Court’s automated document management system was unable to allocate the case and appoint a presiding judge due to an insufficient number of judges.

Two of them had been involved in these proceedings during the pre-trial investigation stage and are therefore not permitted to hear the case on its merits. Another judge has been suspended from duty by a decision of the Disciplinary Chamber of the High Council of Justice. The sole remaining judge went on leave from 10 August until 8 September.

In view of this, Serhii Yanchuk, President of the Bashtanka District Court, applied to the Mykolaiv Court of Appeal requesting that the case file be transferred to another court.

However, the panel of judges at the court of appeal refused.

«A judge’s leave of absence, as a ground for excluding him from the automated case allocation system, is a temporary circumstance which does not deprive him of the possibility of being included in the list of judges of the Bashtanka District Court in Mykolaiv Oblast to whom cases are allocated automatically,» according to the reasoning of the appeal panel of judges.

Murder in Pliushchivka

The tragedy took place on 17 March at the village council offices in the village of Pliushchivka, Bashtanka District, Mykolaiv region. Investigators stated that on that day, a conflict arose between the village head, Viktor Prokopchuk, and his assistant, Svitlana Vanzhula, due to a long-standing hostile relationship. During the altercation, the man took a sawn-off hunting shotgun and fired at the woman at least three times. She died at the scene from her injuries.

The following day, 18 March, village head Viktor Prokopchuk was remanded in custody with the option of posting bail of over 290,000 hryvnias. Bail was posted on his behalf just one day later, on 19 March.

On 20 March, the public prosecutor’s office announced that it intended to appeal against the court’s decision regarding the preventive measure imposed on the village head of Plyushchivka.

The mayor of Bashtanka, Oleksandr Berehovyi, had previously commented on the incident. He refuted the suggestion that the cause might have been an alleged «unauthorised usurpation of power» in the village whilst the village head was in office. According to him, upon his return, Viktor Prokopchuk resumed his duties without hindrance, and the question of his dismissal was not raised.

NikVesti has learnt from its own sources that, a week before the murder, the victim had reported to the police that the village head had brought a shotgun to work, but the police took no action. He kept the weapon itself in his own hiding place — inside a sofa.

However, on 8 April, in response to an information request from NikVesti, the Mykolaiv Regional Police Headquarters stated that Svitlana Vanzhula had not reported to the police any threats or the presence of a weapon at the workplace of the suspect, Viktor Prokopchuk.