Volunteer, ex-judge and lawyer: what is known about Emelyanov, detained by the SBI
3 December 2024 16:38
SBI officers detained the former deputy chairman of the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine, who, together with other judges, built a “business” on court decisions. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to the State Bureau of Investigation’s Telegram channel.
The ex-judge, now a lawyer, was a member of a criminal organization consisting mainly of judges, lawyers, insolvency officers, and various court employees. The organizer of the “business” – also a former high-ranking official of the Higher Economic Court of Ukraine – illegally interfered in the distribution of cases and gave them for consideration exclusively to “his” judges, who fulfilled the “wishes of the customers”.
The organizer was put on the wanted list, and he and a number of other participants in the criminal scheme were served with notices of suspicion, including for creating and participating in a criminal organization. A motion to impose a pre-trial restraint in the form of detention without bail has been filed with the court.
It should be noted that the SBI does not name the suspect. However, the media write that it is Artur Emelyanov.
What Artur Yemelianov says about his detention
In a post on his Facebook page, Emelyanov said the following. According to the man, a few days ago he tried to travel abroad to collect aid in the form of dozens of drones for the military. However, after 5 hours of checks, the border service decided that the ex-judge, now a lawyer and volunteer, had forged both of his passports and confiscated the documents.
Yemelianov believes that this is the way the current government is putting pressure on him.
“I have known for a long time that I, as a lawyer, am under pressure from certain ‘current’ authorities in some cases. Yesterday (December 2, – ed.), at the entrance to the capital, I was detained by SBI officers and informed of my detention to be served with a notice of suspicion of fake, custom-made charges. I am currently detained. I will keep you updated. Today is the trial,” Emelianov wrote.
Lawyer and ex-judge Artur Yemelianov: what is known about him
He was born on February 27, 1973 in Donetsk. He received two higher education degrees from Donetsk State University (1995 – law degree at the Faculty of Economics and Law, 1999 – economist degree at the Faculty of Accounting and Finance). In 2009, he defended his PhD thesis and received the degree of Candidate of Law. His dissertation topic was “Legal regulation of bills of exchange circulation in the business sector”.
He started his career in 1992 as a lawyer at AMS International. In 2000, Mr. Yemelianov was appointed by the President of Ukraine for the first time as a judge of the Arbitration (Commercial) Court of Donetsk Region for a five-year term. Over the next 10 years, from 2001 to 2011, he rose from a judge to the Deputy Chairman and Chairman of the Economic Court of Donetsk Region.
In 2011, he was transferred to Kyiv, where he first became a judge and then the chairman of the Kyiv Economic Court. In 2012, he joined the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeal, where he also became the chairman. In 2013-2014, by the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, he was transferred to the position of a judge and then appointed Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine.
He is divorced, has two sons and a daughter who live in Vienna (Austria). However, in 2017, Schemes journalists suspected that the couple’s divorce was fictitious. They found evidence that the Yemelianovs spent vacations together even after the divorce. According to the journalists, the judge needed an official divorce to avoid declaring joint real estate and explaining where the family got the money to buy it.
According to the electronic declaration for 2024, Yemelianov rents a 73.1 m2 house. He also has the right to an 84.5 m2 apartment, which is currently owned by his ex-wife Svitlana Yemelianova.
The lawyer also declared valuable property – a Breguet watch worth UAH 68 thousand and a Blaser Repetierbuchse R8 carbine worth UAH 113 thousand. In addition, the man owns a Vespa RX-150 moped made in 2012.
According to his declaration, Yemelianov has cash in the amount of UAH 400 thousand and USD 125 thousand. The suspect has UAH 240.5 thousand on his PrivatBank account and $59.9 thousand on his Sberbank account.
It should be noted that in 2018, Artur Emelyanov became involved in an international scandal. Austrian prosecutors believed that Emelyanov and his ex-wife Svetlana were involved in the kidnapping of a German citizen. In October 2018, three Ukrainians – Vladislav Seev Izrailit and a married couple, Maxim Slutsky and Yulia Kaplan – filed a statement with the prosecutor’s office claiming that Artur Emelyanov was involved in the abduction of Vladislav Izrailit. This is a businessman who worked in the hotel industry, where he met Emelyanov’s ex-wife.
In addition, in early June 2018, the HCJ suspended Judge Yemelianov of the Supreme Economic Court. He and the then-chairman of the Supreme Economic Court, Yuriy Tatkov, were accused of interfering with the automated system for distributing court cases. According to the prosecution, they did this to ensure that cases were sent to judges who made the “right” decisions.
Yemelianov also appeared in criminal proceedings on misappropriation of property and money laundering. He was a witness in those cases.
