The medical expert that performed the examination in the Shabunin case and testified to “bodily injuries of medium gravity”, Davyd Valiakhmetov, who, as can be proved with documents, delivered quite dubious forensic results before.
Namely, Valiakhmetov who holds the post of head of the department of forensic medicine in Kyiv city medical bureau of forensic medicine, in his time performed examination for Roman Nasirov and even helped a murderer to get away with it.
In June-July of 2017, when pre-trial restraint for Roman Nasirov, ex-head of the State Fiscal Service, was reviewed, it was Valiakhmetov that confirmed his grave illness and “advised” him to undergo iodine radiotherapy.
The court decision also states that Nasirov claimed that he needed “an immediate specialized treatment in medical facilities abroad”, as in Ukraine there are neither the required conditions, nor specialists for such treatment. However, the court refused to change the restraint order and to give permission to leave the country.
Apparently, this sudden serious condition which inexplicably had no effect on his appearance, requires serious treatment, exclusively abroad at that, and miraculously arises at the moment of choosing the restraining order, raised the court’s suspicion.
To refresh the reader’s memory, Roman Nasirov had been diagnosed with “myocardial infarction”, which was refuted by the Ministry of Health commission, which said that doctors “systematically and without grounds exaggerated the gravity of the ex-head of the State Fiscal Service condition”.
This case is far from being the only one when Valiakhmetov prepared dubious forensic medical result.
In 2010, for instance, when preparing result in the murder case, Valiakhmetov saw no direct cause-and-effect relations between the murderer’s actions and death of the victim, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office. Moreover, his conclusion was refuted by subsequent examination and the court did not take into account his conclusion. Quote from the court decision: “Circumstances described in conclusion have appearance of conjectures, they are confirmed by the testimony…, which the court believes to be untruthful and are refuted by the above conclusions of forensic medical examination and recreation of the scene and circumstances of events with an actor” (vol. 2, case pp. 238-239).
Later the defense told about paying 100 thousand UAH as a bribe to Valiakhmetov for making up the deceitful conclusion. The accused was sentenced to 13 years in prison for murder, yet career of forensic medical expert remained unscathed.
Curiously, the very same forensic medical expert Davyd Valiakhmetov prepared conclusion in the case which is now being pinned to the Head of the Board of Anti-corruption Action Center, Vitaliy Shabunin, for his alleged “assault on the journalist”.
“Originals of the documents which served basis for the forensic medical examination and which would enable us to involve a different expert, are missing from the materials of the case, – says Dmytro Onuchenko, Vitaliy Shabunin’s lawyer. – We believe that the whole case is holding up on a fabricated conclusion of the forensic medical expert that cannot serve as evidence”, – he adds.
The lawyers have previously released a statement that forensic medical examination agaist Shabunin is fabricated and cannot serve as evidence in the case on “assault on a journalist”.