The next court hearing is scheduled for September 19 at 10 a.m., during which court debates will begin.
In the case, businessmen Mihails Ulmans and Aleksandrs Babenko are accused of inciting or ordering murder. Ulmans is also charged with aiding and abetting murder.
Accusations have also been brought against the alleged killer who fired the shots – Russian citizen Viktor Krivoshej, born in 1974. He is also accused of carrying and transporting a firearm and ammunition without a relevant permit and of disclosing information obtained in pre-trial criminal proceedings without the permission of the investigator or prosecutor.
The organizer of the murder has not been charged because he died a violent death. This person was Gennadys Valagins, convicted in the case of the once influential criminal group of Ivan Kharitonov. He was shot in March 2022 in Riga, Pļavnieki.
On the other hand, the criminal proceedings against one person were terminated, as no support for this crime was found in his activities. This person is Arkadijs Yudins, born in 1970.
In the pre-trial criminal proceedings, the circumstances of the commission of the criminal offenses and the persons involved, including their mutual distribution of roles for the implementation of the crime, were clarified. The prosecutor’s office believes that the motive for the crime committed by the defendants was dislike of the administrator while he was performing his professional duties. Bunkus was the administrator of SIA “Rego Trade”, while Ulmans was a former member of the board of this company.
The “De facto” program of Latvian Television (LTV) previously reported that 100,000 euros were offered to the organizer of the Bunkus murder, and 200,000 euros to the executor. More than 100,000 euros were not paid to the performer.
All the accused have been remanded in custody as a security measure.
Bunkus was shot on the morning of May 30, 2018, when he drove his car past the Riga Forest Cemetery. Shortly after the murder, a burned-out car with fake license plates was found near the scene.
The “Martins Bunkus Justice Foundation” previously reported that the masterminds and organizers of the Bunkus murder used methods such as pointing to false “alternative” suspects, sowing doubt in the public about the work done by law enforcement agencies and manipulating the true circumstances of the case with the help of fake news.
Ulmans had approached the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, complaining that he was being kept in prison without access to the case files.
Since the detention, Ulmans and Babenko have repeatedly asked the court to review the security measure applied to them, but the court has always rejected these requests. Ulmans had also applied to the Office of the Ombudsman, asking that the Ombudsman Juris Jansons evaluate the effectiveness of the detention imposed on him, based on European judicial practice. Ulmans complained to the Ombudsman that he was denied the opportunity to familiarize himself with the information that justified his detention.
According to the opinion of the ombudsman at the disposal of the LETA agency, the court has regularly assessed the validity of the security measure. Although the grounds for detention decisions could be more extensive, this does not make the court’s decisions illegal. The court had based its decisions on the possible threat to the investigation that could be caused if Ulmans were released. The court also concluded that there is a risk that Ulmans may try to avoid the trial or run away.
2024-09-07 16:28:38