The case is of unprecedented magnitude. The president of the Ukrainian Supreme Court, Vsevolod Kniazev, has been arrested and detained in a corruption case involving $ 2.7 million (2.5 million euros), announced Tuesday anti-corruption structures of the country at war. Another person was arrested, an official of Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, Oleksandr Omelchenko, told a news conference.
"This is the biggest case" affecting the judicial branch of the state, said the head of the national anti-corruption office, Semen Kryvonos, citing a "criminal group" formed by Supreme Court judges.
According to anti-corruption officials, Ukrainian billionaire Kostiantin Jevago, whom Kiev has been seeking extradition from France, has agreed with a law firm to pay a bribe to the Supreme Court to "adopt a necessary decision" regarding the former MP.
Arrested in Courchevel at the end of December
According to the anti-corruption prosecutor's office, Kostiantin Jevago transferred $2.7 million to the lawyers. Of this amount, $1.8 million was to be paid to Supreme Court judges and $900,000 to lawyers for their "services as intermediaries." According to the prosecutor's office, the businessman wanted the court to pronounce a decision that would allow him to retain control of the shares of a mining company that is the subject of a dispute with former shareholders.
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The fifth richest person in the country estimated at $ 1.4 billion by the Ukrainian version of the American magazine Forbes, Kostiantin Jevago is the owner of the mining group Ferrexpo and has been on the list of people wanted by Ukraine for several years for "financial crimes". This former MP is accused of embezzling $113 million from his Finance and Credit Bank, which went bankrupt in 2015. Arrested on 28 December 2022 in Courchevel in France, he was placed in pre-trial detention for a few days and then under judicial control since early January.
The fight against corruption, an endemic evil in Ukraine, is one of the conditions set by the European Union for maintaining Kiev's candidate status. A previous corruption case in January, involving army supplies, led to a cascade of resignations in the country's ministries, regions and judicial system.
