A scheme to evade mobilization involving judges and lawyers has been uncovered in the Sumy region
Under the procedural supervision of the Office of the Prosecutor General, five individuals—two judges of the Konotop City and District Court in Sumy Oblast, two attorneys, and a person subject to military service—have been notified of their status as suspects. They organized a scheme to issue fictitious court rulings to evade military service and obtain deferrals from mobilization.
Law enforcement officials determined that the suspects systematically filed petitions with the court containing false information regarding the dissolution of family relationships, single-parent child-rearing, or the declaration of one parent as missing. To ensure the cases were assigned to the “right” judges, the perpetrators manipulated the automated document management system, filing and withdrawing lawsuits until they were assigned to a loyal presiding judge.
To date, the investigation has established four instances of this criminal activity.
In one case, a judge and her colleague helped her son—a military servicemember—to arrange a fictitious divorce and sole custody of a child, even though he continued to live with his family. Based on this decision, the man was discharged to the reserve and received a deferment.
In another instance, one of the involved attorneys, in collaboration with the judge, used a similar scheme to secure his own deferment from mobilization.
Another case involved declaring the ex-wife of a conscript missing without any official grounds or a warrant for her arrest, which also allowed him to evade conscription.
The actions of the individuals involved were classified under the article on obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 114-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). In addition, the military servicemember-lawyer is charged with evading military service through deception (Part 4 of Article 409 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), and both judges are charged with aiding and abetting this crime (Article 27, Part 5, and Article 409, Part 4, of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The issue of imposing pretrial measures on the suspects is currently being decided.
Source: Office of the Prosecutor General.
As a reminder, the SBU, the State Bureau of Investigation, and the National Police have uncovered 11 more schemes to evade mobilization in various regions of Ukraine.
The SBU exposed hackers who created a fake “Reserve+” app to evade mobilization.
