Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) arrested for two months an MP of Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) accused of attempting to bribe the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov and Head of the State Agency for Restoration of Ukraine, Mustafa Nayyem, according to the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).
The name of the accused is not disclosed, but it is assumed to be Serhiy Labaziuk, a member of the For the Future faction and former CEO of the industrial group of companies VITAGRO. He was arrested for two months with the possibility of alternative bail of 40.2 million hryvnias (1.1 million dollars).
Detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) detained Labaziuk on November 21. He was charged with attempting to bribe officials who reported the matter to law enforcers.
According to the investigation, the MP asked a top official to grant one of his companies the contracts for repairing facilities worth 1 billion hryvnyas ($27.75m), promising a bribe of 3 to 5 per cent. The MP now faces 5 to 10 years in prison with or without confiscation of property.
“The HACC investigating judge upheld the position of the SAPO prosecutor and chose a restraint measure for an MP who was exposed for providing undue benefit to the Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine – Minister of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine and the Chairman of the Ukraine’s State Agency for the Restoration and Development of Infrastructure. The court applied to the mentioned suspect a preventive measure in the form of detention in custody with the alternative of posting UAH 40.2 million bail and imposing procedural obligations in case of its posting. The term of detention is set at two months.”
Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has experienced several corruption scandals involving the country’s top officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to equate martial law corruption with state treason, but some officials believe that by doing so he planned to transfer the investigation of corruption cases from the NABU and the SAPO to the hands of the Security Service of Ukraine, a service more loyal to the president.
However, experts believe that the fight against corruption in Ukraine is, in fact, a redistribution of power and financial flows, whereas corruption itself continues to flourish even amid the protracted war.
