In August 2017, the case of Lviv businessman Petro Dyminskyi, whose motorcade was involved in an accident in which a woman died, became widely publicized. Six years have passed since then, and few people remember the accident. Meanwhile, the investigation into the case has not yet been completed, and it is unknown when it will happen. But recently, new details of this accident have appeared. Read more in the article by “Apostrophe”.
Who was driving the car?
It is worth recalling the essence of the case. On August 18, 2017, on the Lviv-Krakovets highway, a Mercedes from the motorcade of Lviv businessman Petro Dyminskyi crashed into the Opel of 31-year-old Natalia Trila, who died on the spot. Petro Dyminskyi’s bodyguard, Andriy Borshch, admitted to being the culprit of the accident, although the victim's relatives claimed that the businessman himself was driving.
Petro Dyminsky went abroad three days after the accident. On March 19, 2019, two NABU detectives interrogated Petro Dyminskyi in Athens at the Ukrainian embassy, but on a different matter. Later, the court considered the results of three molecular genetic examinations. According to the first one, the genetic characteristics of Andriy Borshch's samples do not match those found in the Mercedes car. According to the second one, the car contained signs of Andrii Borshch's DNA, and the third examination found that due to the low presence of DNA in the samples from the car, they could not be compared.
The investigation in the case lasted three years. The case itself was "soccered" in various instances. Apostrophe's requests to the SBU and the Prosecutor General's Office in 2020 received vague answers. Since then, nothing has been known about Dyminskyi’s case. However, on August 31, the Lvivski Novyny publication published information about this high-profile case with new details.
An attempted raid
The authors of the publication claim that they managed to find a person from Dyminskyi’s inner circle who, on condition of anonymity, told hitherto unknown facts, shared information about the behind-the-scenes events that preceded the accident, and described how the media and political landscape changed during the confrontation between the media owner and the then government.
“Almost no one knows about it until now, but the history of pressure on Dyminskyi began with the country's most critical of the authorities at that time – the television show “Insha Ukraina,” hosted by Mikheil Saakashvili, who merely destroyed the then authorities on air,” – the source claims. – Only ZIK, Dyminskyi's channel, gave Mikheil access to a broad audience at the time.
The program's first episode aired on April 5, 2017, four months before the traffic accident. After several broadcasts of the program, Dyminskyi received a message from Poroshenko, who demanded loyalty to the government from the channel. In return, he was offered control over Ukrtransgaz. Afterwards, Dyminskyi half-jokingly put forward his terms, offering Poroshenko to buy his channel for 70 million dollars. This proposal angered the president and forbade any of his entourage to have any contacts with Dyminskyi, as well as to come to the airings of his TV channel to any so-called pool of the president.
But you should know Dyminskyi – no one is more determined and stubborn in character; he consistently achieved his goals, and legends are still going around about it. After a while, he was persuaded to meet with Yurii Lutsenko in Kyiv. I know for a fact that it was organized by Vasyl Pisnyi, for those who have forgotten – one of the first persons in the Security Service of Ukraine at that time. He was an influential person who always managed to remain in the shadows.
As a result of the meeting, Lutsenko called Poroshenko. The prosecutor-general assured the president that he had agreed on everything with Dyminskyi, and that there would be no problems. When he hung up the phone, Lutsenko immediately asked Dyminskyi not to sell the channel to Poroshenko, guaranteeing that he and his funding partners would buy out ZIK.
The next day after the traffic accident, Lutsenko, Avakov, and Poroshenko had a meeting where they divided the channel among themselves. Consequently, ski-masked raids began at Dyminskyi's properties, at his home, harassment through the media, and so on, and there are numerous references to it. It's ridiculous, but I remember that even a toothbrush the owners used to brush their little dog's teeth was seized for DNA sampling.
Subsequently, another “greeting” was sent to Dyminskyi through the law enforcement agencies – pay three million dollars, and you can forget about the criminal case. They were told to get lost...
Afterwards, Lutsenko sends a negotiator to Dyminskyi – the Zahorii couple. As the elections were approaching, they demanded to obtain the channel free of charge from the then Presidential Administration, blackmailing him with maximum dire consequences in case of refusal, referring to Lutsenko. In an interview with “Ukrainska Pravda,” the then-head of Diminsky's media holding gave detailed information about it.
It is also notable that the Zahorii couple then filed a lawsuit claiming that ZIK representatives were groundlessly accusing them of raiding. However, they eventually lost this court case.
As a result, the Zahorii couple was also rejected. Dyminskyi's response was radical opposition to Poroshenko's politics and persona on his TV channel, which had already taken second place among the news channels in Ukraine for its influence. In fact, Dyminskyi's channel has always retained its leading position in the west of Ukraine. These were the regions that Poroshenko was primarily counting on in the presidential election, so one can imagine his anger at Dyminskyi's intransigence.Dyminskyi was also offered to close all the issues with the criminal case later on, but he was never concerned with such “offers”; he relied only on the law, justice, and the work of his lawyers.
Thus, Oleksii Meniv, one of Dyminskyi's lawyers, on our suggestion, outlined the entire chronology of events surrounding the case:
On August 18, 2017, the motorcade of P.P. Dyminskyi got into a fatal road traffic accident.
On August 19, in response to a telephone appeal of the investigator without any summons, Petro Dyminskyi consented to his interrogation.
On August 20, Petro Dyminskyi attended a soccer match in Lviv; it was broadcasted on TV. On the same day, he was interrogated and answered all the investigators' questions, as evidenced by the report. After the investigative actions, the investigators reported in the media that Diminsky did not have any bodily injuries! (Here is a comment from Mykola Samarchuk, deputy head of the Lviv Region National Police)
On August 23, according to the working schedule, Petro Dyminskyi flew out for a planned medical checkup in a Swiss clinic and, I emphasize, did not receive any suspicions. There is a corresponding court decision! Literally from the next day, the events that give reason to doubt the impartial investigation of the road accident circumstances commenced:
1) Media harassment, when without trial and investigation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine heads claimed that Petro Dyminskyi was probably driving the car.
2) Further, unprecedented mass searches began. 28 (!) investigators and dozens of involved operatives in anti-terrorist uniforms stormed the offices of Dyminskyi, the ZIK TV channel, and even the Children's Football School “Karpaty”.
3) From August 24th through August 27th, the whole country, including experts from the institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, had a vacation on Independence Day. Precisely during these three days, a molecular genetic examination was carried out, which is technologically impossible in such a short period! Obviously, its results were canceled by the court, and the examination was recognized as inappropriate. The court appointed a new examination, for which the investigator did not provide the driver's “airbag” for a whole year (!). A year later, an expert examination was conducted, which found that there was no DNA of Dyminskyi, but there was DNA of Borshch (the driver). The investigators appointed and conducted a third expert genetic examination, which also did not identify Dyminskyi's DNA.
4) There was an attempt to put Dyminskyi on an international wanted list, but Interpol refused the request due to political persecution and violation of procedure.
5) The witnesses (security guards) were suspected of knowingly giving false testimony; they passed a lie detector test that confirmed that they were telling the truth, and all three courts, including the Supreme Court, acquitted them.
6) There are no claims of the victims and no witnesses who would have seen someone else driving the car except Borshch. The terms of pre-trial investigation have long expired.
7) In the summer of 2020, the Pecherskyi Court set the terms of the pre-trial investigation and was obliged to close the case or send it to trial within two months. Three years have passed, and this court decision has still not been implemented.
What is left on the bottom line? The investigation was unable to find any witnesses; the expert examinations of DNA samples from the car indicate that the businessman's security guard was in the driver's seat; Interpol refused to include Petro Dyminskyi in its database; the businessman is not wanted and has complete freedom of movement; the court decision to close the case is not implemented.
What will be the end of the story, which started as an operation to raid the TV channel, and now the system trivializes what to do about it?
