Judge and child killer Oleksandr Khrimli declared a legal war on Ukrainian media

Judge and child killer Oleksandr Khrimli declared a legal war on Ukrainian media

Scandal-ridden retired judge Oleksandr Khrimli, who, thanks to the press, could not make it to either the Appeal Chamber of the High Court on Intellectual Property or the High Qualification Commission of Judges, announced a personal vendetta against the publications and journalists who dared to describe his biography after these defeats.

Let us remind you that former judge of the Kyiv Court of Appeal Oleksandr Khrimli is now retired and is engaged in legal practice. The story he is trying to erase from the internet and for which he is suing the publication and journalists relates to the period when Khrimli worked at the Kyiv District Court of Donetsk and hit two children while drunk.

This fact is not fiction – it was reported by both Radio Liberty and several other publications, and also stated from the parliamentary rostrum by MP Oksana Syroid, who literally said: "Oleksandr Khrimli is mentioned in numerous open sources. He is accused of committing a traffic accident under the influence of alcohol, as a result of which two children died. The judge was under investigation for a long time, but the case did not reach court. The children’s mother died, and the father was found ’hanged’. This same judge prohibited peaceful assemblies in 2013, citing ’inconvenience for the organization of a fair’.

This is the most scandalous story from the biography of the judge, who is called a symbol of the so-called ’judicial mafia’. It surfaced when Khrimli was applying for a position in the High Qualification Commission of Judges - a body that essentially decides the fates of judges of all levels in our country. That’s why Oksana Syroid spoke out - the case was truly outrageous: a judge-killer was applying for a position that determines whether a person can be a judge. To go ahead, we will say that for the drunk killing of two children, Khrimli did not even receive an administrative penalty – his judge status and connections saved him.

The story happened back in 2004 in Donetsk. At that time, Judge of Kyiv District Court in the city of Donetsk Oleksandr Khrimli, while drunk, ran over two children who died as a result of the collision. There was an investigation into the case – the violent death of the children in the city even had to be investigated in Donetsk.

However, taking advantage of his status, Khrimli left the scene, and the investigation was drawn out and ’tied up’ by investigators to such an extent that it never reached court. Furthermore, while the so-called investigation was ongoing, the children’s mother died, and the father was suddenly ’hanged’. After this, the criminal case was closed due to the ’lack of victims’. Whether it was a coincidence or they were both helped – we will never know. However, neither the deaths nor the investigation affected Oleksandr Khrimli’s fate – in 2007, he became a judge of the Donetsk District Administrative Court, and in 2009 – Kyiv’s:

Where his photo and biography still shine, despite the fact that Oleksandr Khrimli is now retired, sent there by the previous government – either trying to somewhat clean up the judicial horror that is happening in our country, or as a ’reward’ for dubious exploits during the Maidans

However, while being retired, Khrimli tried to take new positions – submitting his candidacies to the Appeal Chamber of the High Court on Intellectual Property and the High Qualification Commission of Judges. But as already said, due to public resonance, he did not get anywhere. And the times have slightly changed – many of his Donetsk benefactors, whom he served faithfully by closing the criminal case regarding the fatal traffic accident, were being nourished by other hands.

But the retired judge clearly harbored a grudge against the journalists who dared to write about an unfortunate misunderstanding in Donetsk that ended in four deaths in total and which has been haunting Oleksandr Khrimli for almost twenty years. Using his legal knowledge and connections in the judicial world (’judicial mafia’ has not been defeated, despite two Maidans and nine years of war), lawyer Oleksandr Khrimli began filling courts with lawsuits.

He started, of course, with national publications. Some of the first to ’distribute’ were Radio Liberty, Ukrainska Pravda, and Antikor, which wrote the most about the former judge.

Against Artem Furmanyuk, who wrote a material in 2012 "Ukrainian Justice on the Verge of New Challenges?", in which Oleksandr Khrimli was mentioned, the latter filed a whole series of lawsuits. Ukrainska Pravda, which also described the ’adventures’ of the former judge, did not escape its fate. Antikor, which devoted a number of materials to Oleksandr Khrimli, also has a place of honor in this list.

Oleksandr Khrimli won some of these lawsuits. He didn’t hesitate to report this on his personal website, calling the media that wrote about him ’sites with low social responsibility’:

But Mr. Khrimli prefers to remain silent about the lawsuits he lost. And there are such, despite his legal experience and connections in the courts:

However, the former judge’s personal vendetta continues – he continues to fill courts with lawsuits against publications that not only printed original materials with his biography but also against those who only reposted the article or quoted the MPs’ words spoken in the Rada about Mr. Khrimli. Aides in this persistent work for Oleksandr Khrimli are found much more often among the people in robes than one might assume, considering Oleksandr Khrimli has the blood of two children on his hands.

However, contrary to the former judge’s expectations and ’one of the country’s best lawyer-analysts’, his hopeless struggle yielded a different result than he expected – more and more began writing about what Oleksandr Khrimli is accused of. The so-called "Streisand effect" worked, which apparently Mr. Khrimli hadn’t heard of. So he has lots of work ahead of him. For the fact of the drunken traffic accident in which two children were killed, of course, no one will hold the former judge accountable anymore – all the statutes of limitations have passed, and all the evidence has long been destroyed. But besides the human court, there is another one, to which pensioner Oleksandr Khrimli is getting closer and closer.