BIHUS.Info wins lawsuit by former intelligence officer Semochko

The team of investigators with BIHUS.Info won in court against Serhiy Semochko, the former First Deputy Chief of Foreign Intelligence, BIHUS.Info reported in a Facebook post. The media outlet noted that the trial had lasted six years.

“2018, an investigation into the family’s Russian passports, estates in Kozyn, and the SBU’s interference in medicine procurement. After that – a six year long trial. And what the intelligence officer and his lawyers have not done during this time! They implicated random people in the case, seized the accounts and property of the journalists and the TV channel, made them retract the investigation several times,” the team wrote.

The journalists add that the case once went through all three instances and was submitted back for a re-trial due to multiple violations, and that in the fall of 2024 the Holosiivskyi Court of Kyiv ruled that the journalists should retract the investigation for the second time and re-pay Semochko the money they had already paid several years ago.

“Imagine having to pay a fine that has long been paid off for the second time or being fired from a job that you have not worked for three years. Absurd? Yes, but that's our courts for you, such things happen here. However, judges love the joke 'the appeal court will fix it' for a reason. Today the Kyiv Court of Appeals did fix it. The ruling has been canceled, the money will be given back to the journalists. It is only a pity that there is no procedure to make Semochko go on air and retract the retraction,” the team said.

Previously

In October 2018, the program “Our Money with Denys Bihus” (Bihus.Info) released an investigation into the interference in dialysis medicine procurement by Serhiy Semochko, the First Deputy Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service. The interference led to a suspension of purchases and a medicine shortage. The journalists also investigated the official’s family and found that over the past three years its members had bought three estates in Kozyn with a total value of about $8 million, which is inconsistent with the family’s official income. Moreover, the journalists reported that his family has Russian passports and often visits the occupied Crimea.

On November 9, 2018, Semochko filed a defamation lawsuit demanding that the journalists retract the reported information about his family’s property and Russian passports.

On November 13, 2020, it was reported that the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv ordered multiple Ukrainian news outlets to retract the information they had published about Serhiy Semochko as untrue and causing moral damage.

In the same month, Judge Yuriy Mazur of the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv granted the claim by Serhiy Semochko and issued an order for forced execution of the court ruling without waiting for it to be appealed. As a result, a private bailiff arrested the accounts of Channel 24 and journalists Denys Bihus and Lesya Ivanova.