Judges accused of bribe-taking
The Prosecutor Generals Office, on the basis of material provided by the Security Service [SBU], has initiated a criminal investigation against the Head of the Lviv Administrative Court of Appeal on suspicion of crimes under Article 368 § 3 of the Criminal Code.
The judge involved in October last year is believed to have received a bribe of 100 thousand US dollars from an individual as payment for passing an unlawful ruling.
During a search of the home and office of the judge, large amounts of cash in Ukrainian and foreign currency were found and removed.
Investigators are looking into whether the judge may have been implicated in other cases of unlawful activity.
The Prosecutor Generals Office also informs that a criminal file has been passed to the court regarding city-district court judge C from the Sumy region. The Sumy Regional Prosecutors Office has concluded investigation and passed to the court a case under Article 375 § 2 [passing a knowingly wrongful ruling – translator] and of Article 365 § 3 [exceeding ones powers] of the Criminal Code. .
Investigators say that in December 2003 the judge passed a ruling blocking the forced seizure from one of the enterprises of the region of 99 million UAH in tax and customs payments due in accordance with a ruling of the economic court which had, incidentally, already come into force.
It was reported yesterday that the Central Department for Investigating Particularly Serious Crimes within the Prosecutor Generals Office has sent two criminal investigations to the Supreme Court to establish jurisdiction. The cases involve accusations against:
- the head of one of the local courts in the Dnipropetrovsk region under Article 368 § 3 of the Criminal Court of demanding and receiving in July this year a bribe of 50 thousand US dollars for changing the preventive measure applied from remand in custody to a signed undertaking not to abscond;
- the heads of the departments of land resources, city housing and construction of one of the local state administrations and the head of the settlement council of the Odessa Region, also under Article 368 § 3, for allegedly demanding and receiving via a go-between in September – October 2007 450 thousand US dollars as a bribe for resolving the issue of lease of 3 hectares of land.
From information provided by the Press Service of the Prosecutor Generals Office http://gpu.gov.ua/