HACC Convicts 9 in NAAS Land Fraud Case
The Supreme Anti-Corruption Court found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment nine defendants in the case of the seizure of over 13 hectares of particularly valuable land in the village of Hatne, Kyiv-Svyatoshyn district, Kyiv region, which belonged to the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences.
As reported, the following are accused in this case: former President of the NAAS Vasyl Petrychenko; Vice President of the Academy Anush Balyan; Head of the Chabany Research Farm Oleksandr Ishchuk; Director of the Institute of Agriculture Viktor Kaminsky; Research Fellow of the Ivan Shevchenko Institute of Agriculture; Academician of the NAAS Svitlana Kovtun; former Deputy Head of the State Land Agency in the Kyiv Region Stanislav Gubin; Head of the State Land Cadastre Department of this State Roman Kucher and SBU employee Vitaliy Oborsky.
The judges found all the defendants guilty. Petrychenko was sentenced to 7 years in prison with a ban on holding certain positions for 2 years and confiscation of 1/2 of his property. Kaminsky was sentenced to 7 years in prison with the same additional punishment.
Oborsky was sentenced to 8 years with a ban on holding certain positions for 2 years and confiscation of 2/3 of his property. He was also stripped of his military rank of colonel. Gubin and Kucher were also sentenced to 8 years in prison. They were also banned from holding certain positions for 2 years and confiscated 2/3 of their property. Kovtun, Balyan, Ishchuk and Shevchenko were each sentenced to 7 years in prison with a ban on holding positions for 2 years and confiscation of half of their property.
The court also ruled to return to state ownership 138 land plots with an area of 13.2564 hectares in Hatne, which the defendants seized, and six more plots of 0.508 hectares in Hatne, which they tried to seize. At the same time, the court refused to satisfy the civil claim of the Cabinet of Ministers against the defendants for UAH 42.55 million.
In addition, all defendants were given the following obligations: to appear upon each demand; to report any change of residence and work; not to leave the region in which they reside; to surrender their foreign passports and to wear an electronic bracelet.
The verdict was passed by a panel of judges: Yevhen Kruk (presiding), Inna Bilous and Oleksiy Kravchuk. It has not yet entered into legal force and can be appealed within 30 days.
We remind you that, according to the prosecution, officials of the NAAS and its structural divisions, an advisor to the NAAS Presidium from the Security Service of Ukraine, the Main Directorate of the State Land Agency in the Kyiv region, from September 2013 to September 2014, intentionally, for selfish motives, through the abuse of official position by an official, seized 138 land plots (total area 13.2564 hectares) located on the territory of the Hatnya village council of the Kyiv-Svyatoshyn district of the Kyiv region.
According to the SAPO, the indicated lands were formed as a result of the seizure of 15.12 hectares of particularly valuable land from the State Enterprise "Chabany", and their market value at the time of transfer to private ownership was UAH 42.55 million.
In addition, as the SAPO added, the above-mentioned individuals also intended to acquire 6 more land plots with a total area of 0.581 hectares, the market value of which at the time of formation was 1.43 million UAH.
Vasyl Petrichenko is a suspect in the EBK database.
It was previously reported that the Court of Appeals of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court remanded in custody the chief physician of the Khmelnytskyi Regional MSEC, Tetyana Krupa.
We also wrote that a Lviv rescuer was fined for a bribe.