Court resumes investigation into the assault on "Espreso" journalist

The Ternopil City District Court (Ternopil oblast) canceled their decision to close the proceedings regarding the assault on "Espreso" journalist Maria Ivanovska, which happened in May 2023.

The ruling was issued on December 22, 2023, in response to the journalist's complaint, reports Espreso.

The journalist filed a complaint against the Ternopil District Police Department's investigator deciding to close the proceedings in the case of the attack on her, which occurred on May 8, 2023 in Ternopil.

According to Ivanovska, she learned about the police's decision to close the case from mass media as late as the end of November.

"The investigator did not send me the decision either to my work address or to my personal address, only texting it to me on Telegram after a week of inquiries and calls, which is not an official notification at all," said Maria Ivanovska.

The journalist noted that while the complaint was being reviewed it became clear that the attacker had given many false statements. She also stresses that the threats were made after she told him that she was a journalist.

Maria Ivanovska filed a complaint against the investigator's decision. Among other things, the complaint stated that "the pre-trial investigation body failed to properly assess the details established by the pre-trial investigation, confirmed by the evidence available in the case files."

The journalist's lawyer Maryna Haponiuk commented on the court's decision: "This means that the pre-trial investigation should be continued, the investigator should find out all the details of the case, take some investigative and procedural action, and, based on the results, make a decision according to the law. For example, it could be a suspicion notice…”

The decision entered into legal force from the moment of its announcement, is final and is not subject to appeal.

As the IMI reported, in May 2023, in Ternopil, a lodger of the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal judge, Lyudmila Kropyvna, assaulted the "Espreso" reporter, Maria Ivanovska, forcibly taking away her phone and threatening to beat her.

In November it was reported that the case on obstruction of the professional work of the "Espresso" reporter Maria Ivanovska in Ternopil has been closed due to the lack of corpus delicti. The case had been opened in 2023 under Part 1 of Article 117 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (preclusion to the legal professional work of journalists) and Part 4 of Article 186 of the CCU (robbery in wartime).