The Bakhmatskyi District Court of Chernihiv Oblast has acquitted a high-profile case of unauthorized distribution of confidential data. The cyber police believed they had caught the channel administrator who was selling scans of documents, but the defense completely destroyed the evidence base.
The Bakhmatskyi District Court of Chernihiv Oblast has acquitted a high-profile case of unauthorized distribution of confidential data. The cyber police believed they had caught the channel administrator who was selling scans of documents, but the defense completely destroyed the evidence base.
Dev.ua looked into the court registry to figure out why the «illegal intent» case fell apart in court.
The story began in the spring of 2025, when a senior cyber police officer, while monitoring the network, came across a Telegram channel. There, photos of ID cards, foreign passports, and screenshots from the digital application «Diya» were massively published.
The investigation quickly identified the administrator based on the account avatar. She turned out to be an unemployed married mother of two young children from the Chernihiv region. During a search in June 2025, a Xiaomi 14T smartphone was seized from the woman, where the same admin account was found.
According to prosecutors, the accused from October 2021 to March 2025:
Published personal data of Ukrainians on her own Telegram channel.
She sent photos of documents to private chats to users with nicknames like Desstroy, Pomedoc, and Dimon .
She corresponded about «receiving a monetary reward for the documents provided.»
The woman was charged with Part 1 and Part 2 of Article 361-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (unauthorized sale or distribution of information with restricted access). The prosecutor demanded a guilty verdict.
The accused did not admit her guilt and refused to testify on the basis of Article 63 of the Constitution of Ukraine. However, in the debate she noted: people themselves, voluntarily and without any pressure, sent her these screenshots.
The defendant’s lawyer was even more pragmatic and pointed out serious gaps in the prosecution’s arguments:
Unproven unauthorizedness: If people themselves dumped the documents, they could have consented to their distribution to third parties.
Authenticity in question: The investigation did not check whether these passports were even real, or whether they were just high-quality photoshop or a fake.
«Leaky» protection: Since access to the Telegram channel was free, the protection questioned the regime of «information that is created and protected in accordance with the law.»
«All doubts regarding the proven guilt of a person shall be interpreted in his favor.» — Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
The judge of the Bakhmatskyi District Court, weighing the continental standard of «internal conviction» and the Anglo-Saxon standard of «beyond reasonable doubt,» rendered a full acquittal. There were several good reasons for this:
Cyber police «rushed» to find victims: During interrogation, a cyber police operative admitted that the real owners of the passports were not even identified during the pre-trial investigation. He said that this «would only lead to a delay in the deadlines.» The court did not appreciate this approach — because without the owners' testimony, it is impossible to prove that the data was distributed without their consent.
Inadmissible evidence: The cops referred to the woman’s words, which she allegedly said during the search. The court recalled that the testimony of law enforcement officers «from someone else’s words» regarding the explanations of the suspects during the investigative actions is inadmissible.
In dubio pro reo principle: Since prosecutors were unable to prove the main element of the crime — the unauthorized nature of the actions (lack of permission from the information owners), the court interpreted all doubts in favor of the defendant.
The court found the woman innocent and fully acquitted her due to lack of proof of the crime.
The arrest of the property has been canceled. The Xiaomi 14T smartphone, which has been lying in the evidence room of the Nizhyn Regional Administrative District for a year, should be returned to the owner immediately after the verdict becomes legally binding (unless the prosecutor’s office files an appeal within 30 days). The woman is no longer threatened with restrictions of liberty or fines.
