KIEV, May 16 (Reuters) – The head of Ukraine’s Supreme Court was ousted from his post on Tuesday after he was detained in a bribery investigation that anti-corruption authorities called the biggest case in its history.
kyiv has redoubled its efforts to crack down on corruption despite the invasionand doing so is vital to fulfilling the conditions for joining the European Union.
Oleksandr Omelchenko, a prosecutor with the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), said the senior Supreme Court judge had been detained as part of an alleged bribery scheme and was awaiting a formal “notification of suspicion”.
Omelchenko did not identify the judge by name, but the court had so far been headed by Chief Justice Vsevolod Kniaziev, who could not immediately be reached for comment.
“At the moment, the president of the Supreme Court has been detained and steps are being taken to check whether other people are involved in criminal activities,” Omelchenko said at a joint briefing with the National Anti-Corruption Office of Ukraine (NABU).
(1/4) Money found by National Anti-Corruption Bureau detectives during investigative actions in a corruption case involving Supreme Court judges is pictured at an unknown location in Ukraine in this handout image released on May 15, 2023. Press Service of the National Anti-Corruption Office Office of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS
Hours later, an emergency plenary meeting of the Supreme Court voted censure on Knyaziev and then voted to remove him as president of the court. Another judicial body would be in charge of stripping him of the status of his judge.
NABU had announced on Monday that anti-corruption agencies were investigating large scale corruption in the Supreme Court system, and shared a photograph of stacks of dollars neatly lined up on a sofa.
In a statement, NABU said the head of the Supreme Court was suspected of accepting a $2.7 million bribe. The agency’s head, Semen Kryvonos, told a briefing on Tuesday that it was the highest-profile case involving Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies.
“We are showing through real cases, real events, what our priority is: it is high corruption, it is criminal organizations at the highest levels of power,” he said.
Kryvonos said the bribe was paid to rule in favor of the Finance and Credit financial group, owned by prominent businessman Konstiantyn Zhevago, and may be part of a broader scheme to pressure the court. Zhevago has denied any wrongdoing.
Reporting by Dan Peleschuk, editing by Timothy Heritage
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