Poltava court postpones hearing on death threats to journalist Anastasia Matsko for the fourth time

The Poltava Court of Appeal postponed a hearing of the appeal claim by the Poltavaka Khvylia journalist Anastasia Matsko against Poltava District Council deputy Serhiy Boyko, who threatened to kill her, for the fourth time on July 30, reports Nadia Kucher, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Poltava oblast who attended the hearing.

The hearing was postponed because the defendant's lawyer could not attend it due to having another trial scheduled for the same date in a different court. The defendant, deputy Boyko, failed to attend himself.

The prosecutors' representative (left) said she saw no grounds for bringing Boyko to the hearing by force and added that this could be the solution for the next hearing. Photo by Nadia Kucher

In a comment to the IMI representative, Anastasia Matsko said that this was the fourth time that a hearing in the case has been postponed. The journalist added that she viewed such actions as an attempt to stall the trial.

The journalist's lawyer, Dmytro Semekha, filed a motion to possibly bring Boyko to the courtroom by force, since this is the second time that he failed to attend. However, the court dismissed the motion, saying that the reason for the defendant's absence was unknown.

Attorney Dmytro Semekha and journalist Anastasia Matsko (left to right) asked the court to bring the defendant to the courtroom by force. Photo by Nadia Kucher

Previously

On November 15, Poltavska Khvylia journalist Anastasia Matsko filed an appeal against Poltava's Oktyabrskyi District Court ruling sentencing City Council deputy Serhiy Boyko, who threatened to kill her, to one year's probation. The journalist demanded three years of imprisonment for the official.

On March 29, 2023, Anastasia Matsko, a journalist at the online publication "Poltava Wave", has said that district council deputy, Serhiy Boyko, and the head of the welfare inspection, Maksym Malko, threatened her during a City Council session.

The police opened a case for Part 2 of Article 171 ("Obstructing the legal professional work of journalists") of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Later, the journalist's lawyer, Dmytro Semekha, requested that the Poltava police reclassify the case as threats instead of obstruction. On May 29, Matsko and her lawyer filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General's Office due to the police's inaction. Two forensic examinations confirmed that the journalist received death threats, but the work of the prosecutors' remained insufficient, in her opinion.

On November 7, 2023, the deputy received a suspicion notice under Part 1 of Article 345-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (threats or violence against a journalist). The trial began in February 2024. There have been no hearings on the appeal since the first instance court's ruling.