Former Ukrainian Security Service general may be released in Serbia in December, BBC reports

Andrii Naumov, former head of the Main Department of Internal Security of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), may be released from custody in Serbia in December. Belgrad has refused to extradite him to Ukraine, where he is involved in several criminal cases.

Source: BBC News Україна

Quote from BBC: "A Serbian court has denied the extradition of Andrii Naumov to Ukraine and has sentenced him to one year in prison on charges of money laundering. The former SSU official has already spent over a year in pre-trial detention, effectively serving a significant portion of his punishment, and is expected to be released soon. Our sources say that his release could happen as early as the beginning of December."

Details: In March 2022, the Ukrainian authorities called Naumov a traitor, opened several criminal cases, stripped him of the rank of brigadier general and declared him an internationally wanted man.

Andrii Naumov was detained at the border between Serbia and North Macedonia on 7 June 2022. He claimed in court that he was going with a friend to Athens for the yacht fair. The media reported that Ukrainian businessman and German citizen Oleksandr Akst was in the car with him.

The court documents, obtained by the Serbian service of the BBC, read that the police found about EUR 600 thousand cash and US$120 thousand undeclared, as well as two emeralds.

Since then, Naumov has been in the pre-trial detention centre in Niš in southern Serbia.

Two processes were ongoing in Serbia regarding Naumov – the extradition case and the money laundering case.

The trial of a former top official of the SSU lasted more than a year. The court sent him to prison for a year for money laundering.

BBC sources say that the appeal of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, was one of the arguments for the refusal to extradite Naumov.

Zelenskyy called Naumov a "traitor" and deprived him of the rank of brigadier general on 31 March 2022. BBC writes that it was this appeal that later helped Naumov in the Serbian court.

Amid a full-scale war, Naumov's name began to be associated with the treason case of the former head of the Crimean Security Service of Ukraine, Oleh Kulinich.

Kulinich was detained in July 2022, and he was charged with creating a criminal organisation, treason, desertion, kidnapping and illegal handling of weapons. The court is already considering his case.

The investigation materials read that Kulinich, on behalf of the Russian special services, lobbied for the appointment of Naumov to a high position in the SSU in early 2020. At the time, the Security Intelligence Service said that Naumov had the "Hunter" alias and that he, too, may be connected to the Russian special services.

At the same time, the public started to call Naumov a "traitor", although there is still no treason case against him.

The State Bureau of Investigation's (SBI) response to the BBC's request in July 2023 reads that Naumov does not appear in the Kulinich case, and some investigation representatives stated anonymously that the assumption about Naumov being a Russian agent was rushed.

However, other proceedings against him relate to economic crimes.

The SBI says that the first case concerns the simultaneous receipt of a salary at the SSU and the state-owned enterprise at which Naumov worked before joining the special service. He was served with a notice of suspicion of fraud under Article 190.4 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Investigators claim that in three years, he received UAH 3.3 million by means of deception. In this case, the former SSU employee was arrested in absentia and declared an international wanted man.

The second case relates to when he was responsible for the Center for Organisational, Technical and Information Support of Management of the Exclusion Zone.

The investigation materials read that Naumov signed a notoriously unprofitable contract with a fictitious company and unjustifiably charged himself bonuses. In this proceeding, he was served with a notice of suspicion of misappropriation and embezzlement of property and abuse of power or official position.

The court also chose to arrest him in absentia in this case.

When it became known that Naumov was in Serbia, Ukraine requested his extradition but faced a refusal. 

Media reports linked Naumov to alleged involvement in illegal schemes with smuggling, highlighting elite properties in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast that seemed inconsistent with the former government official's official income. However, security service internal investigations found no violations in Naumov's actions as revealed in journalistic investigations, BBC says.

The National Agency on Corruption Prevention examined Naumov's wealth, stating that they scrutinised the ex-SSU official's declarations for the previous period at the beginning of 2022. "As of the beginning of the war, no violations were found," the NACP said to the BBC.

Naumov gained notoriety due to another incident during his service at the SSU. In January 2021, law enforcement authorities allegedly thwarted an attempt on his life. Yuriy Rasiuk, a special service employee suspected of organising the crime, was detained. The investigation materials read that the former Deputy Head of the SSU, Dmytro Neskoromnyi, was implicated in ordering the assassination.

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