The Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court left Supreme Court judge Vsevolod Knyazev in custody, but reduced his bail alternative from 55 to 45 million UAH.
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On September 26, the HACC Appeals Chamber reviewed the decision of the trial court to extend the preventive measure for Knyazev.
The defense asked to replace the detention with 24-hour house arrest. At the meeting, suspect Knyazev said that he was not going to hide from justice and was ready to serve his sentence if the court found him guilty, the Civil Procedure Code reported.
Also, the former chairman of the Supreme Court complained that all the property and all the accounts of him and his close relatives were frozen. It seems that this is why he does not even have the means to pay for a paid service in the pre-trial detention center – Internet access.
And due to the lack of access to the Internet, he allegedly has no way to properly prepare for the trial. It is because of the seizure of his property that he is unable to post bail. Supposedly, no one plans to pay bail for him either, so Knyazev called detention virtually no alternative measure of restraint.
After hearing the arguments of the parties, the panel chaired by Judge Semennikov decided to leave Knyazev in custody, but reduced the amount of bail from 55 million to 45 million UAH.
History of the Knyazev case
This is not the first time the former head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has had his bail reduced. So, before the VAKS decision of September 5, it was 75 million, and in May – 107 million 360 thousand UAH.
Prosecutors then asked that Knyazev’s bail be set at more than 150 million 35 thousand hryvnia. According to the prosecutor, the ex-head of the Armed Forces has enough money to live comfortably outside of Ukraine, because his official net worth for 2017-2022 is more than 30 million hryvnia, and his wife’s is about 2 million hryvnia.
However, Knyazev did not agree with this: he assured that during this time he earned only about 17-19 million hryvnia, and of this amount he had already spent some. The prosecution attributed part of the funds to a company to which he had no connection since the time when he was not chairman of the Supreme Court.
Rakurs wrote that in May SAPO and NABU reported the exposure of “large-scale corruption” in the Supreme Court. Law enforcement officers announced to the head of the Armed Forces Vsevolod Knyazev and his accomplice-lawyer of suspicion of receiving a bribe.
The law firm involved in the case is called an intermediary between the leadership of the court and people who want to “resolve the issue” in court. Thus, investigators recorded a number of contacts between one of the owners of the association and the owner of the financial group “Finance and Credit” (the co-chairman of this group is called Konstantin Zhevago).
The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court considered the case on the ownership of 40.19% of the shares of the Poltava mining and processing plant Ferrexpo. By its decision on April 19, the authority left these shares to companies associated with Zhevago. The businessman himself objected that he was involved in bribing the chairman or judges of the Supreme Court.
On May 15, law enforcement officers recorded the “hot” transfer of the second part of the bribe, and then they detained Knyazev and the lawyer. However, the SAPO said that the money was found from some other judges of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court of Ukraine.
The plenum of the Supreme Court expressed no confidence in Knyazev and prematurely terminated his powers as head of the court. And the High Council of Justice agreed to keep him in custody.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.