An appeal by the Anti-Corruption Court acquitted the defendants in the Okhmatdyt case for UAH 30 million, who had previously been sentenced to five and four years in prison.
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The Anti-Corruption Center reported on December 18 that the panel of judges of the HACC Appeals Chamber acquitted Irina Koval and Igor Kuchma, who were convicted in December 2022 in the case of abuses during the construction of the Okhmatdet children’s hospital.
The corresponding decision was made by a panel of judges consisting of Oleg Pavlishin, Andrey Nikiforov and Valeria Chernaya, the CPC says.
On December 26, 2022, Koval was sentenced to five years in prison, and Kuchma to four years, with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions for a period of three years.
The appeal proceedings lasted almost a year. Therefore, the Code of Civil Procedure warned that the ten-year period for prosecution would expire on December 9, so the accused could avoid punishment.
However, the HACS Appeal refused to release the accused from liability due to the expiration of the terms, but overturned the verdict of the first instance in terms of establishing guilt. The judges decided that there was insufficient evidence of Koval and Kuchma’s guilt.
The court also refused to satisfy the civil claim for 30 million UAH, and assigned all legal costs to the state budget. The reasons for this decision will become known after the full text of the decision is published.
However, even if the HACS Appeal had found both guilty, it would still have released them from liability due to the expiration of the deadlines.
Let us recall that, according to the prosecution, the State Enterprise “Ukrmedproektstroy”, which was headed by Irina Koval, ordered elevators and modules of heating units for the construction and equipment of “Okhmatdyt” from LLC “Ukrprofmed” (whose director was Igor Kuchma).
The State Enterprise transferred a 100% advance payment in the amount of more than 30 million UAH to the contractor, but engineering and technical equipment was not supplied and has not been available until now. Despite the lack of equipment, Koval signed the invoices stating that the equipment had been delivered.
Source: Racurs
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