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Kyiv’s Solomyanka District Court arrested State Fiscal Service Chief Roman Nasirov for two months and set Hr 100 million ($3.7 million) bail early on March 7.
The prosecutors were asking for Hr 2 billion ($74 million) bail.
Previously the court had been dragging its feet on arresting Nasirov for several days. The court’s inability or reluctance to do so was seen by critics as yet more proof that Ukraine’s law enforcement system is highly politicized and incapable of jailing corrupt officials.
“There is no better argument for creating an independent anti-corruption court,” Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, said at an anti-Nasirov rally on March 5.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau on March 2 arrested Nasirov in a corruption case, making him Ukraine’s most high-profile official in custody since the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
He is suspected of illegally allowing participants of an alleged corruption scheme at gas producer Ukrgazvydobuvannya to delay tax payments, causing losses to the state worth Hr 2 billion ($74 million.)
Disrupted hearing
Nasirov told the Livy Bereh news site on March 5 that he wanted “to bring this case to a conclusion and prove” that he is in the right. “I’m here and I’m not going to hide,” he said.
The March 6 hearing on the Nasirov case was constantly delayed by numerous requests by his nine lawyers.
Specifically, the lawyers asked the court to allow a medical check on Nasirov, saying that he did not understand what was going on – an argument that was ridiculed by Nasirov’s opponents.
However, the court on March 5 rejected the defense lawyers’ request to disqualify Judge Oleksandr Bobrovnik and appoint another judge to hear the case.
The hearing was also disrupted when an anonymous caller said a bomb had been planted in the building. The same also happened during the March 4 hearing.
Meanwhile, the prosecutors said that Nasirov had Hungarian and British citizenship and showed a letter from British authorities confirming that he is a citizen of the United Kingdom. Double citizenship is banned under Ukrainian law.
Health problems
Nasirov’s lawyers claim he is in a poor state of health, which means he should not have to attend court hearings. Critics argue that Nasirov pretended to be sick to escape arrest – a common practice among Ukrainian officials in such a situation.
Nasirov, who had been lying on a bed or stretcher in court until March 5, later got up and sat beside his defense team during the March 6 hearing.
Employees of Kyiv’s Feofania hospital said initially that Nasirov had had a heart attack, though this information later proved to be false. Nasirov himself on March 5 denied having had a heart attack, saying he had had a “hypertensive emergency.”
Kyiv’s Cardiology Institute has issued a document according to which Nasirov does not have heart disease, which was used as an argument by the anti-graft bureau to prove that he is capable of attending court hearings.
Anti-Nasirov rally
When the defense lawyers filed a motion to disqualify Bobrovnik on March 5, the court said it had to delay the hearings until March 6 because there was no judge on duty to replace Bobrovnik on March 5. Nasirov’s detention period was scheduled to expire late on March 5.
The court’s decision triggered a public outcry, with critics saying it was illegal and a result of political pressure.
Daria Manzhura, a spokeswoman for the anti-graft bureau, told the Kyiv Post that there was no law that prevented judges from being on duty on Sundays, and that it was the court’s duty to find a judge.
About 500 people protested in front of the court building on March 5 and March 6 and blockaded the court, preventing it from from releasing Nasirov.
The protest was attended by ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze, Democratic Alliance leader Vasyl Hatsko, lawmakers Sergii Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayyem, the AutoMaidan car-based protest group and members of the National Corps, a far-right party.
Political influence
The hearings triggered speculation on alleged interference in the process by President Petro Poroshenko’s grey cardinal and lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky, who denied the accusations on March 6. Poroshenko also denied influencing the trial on March 6, saying that “the anti-corruption institutions are absolutely independent.”
Last year Bobrovnik, who is considering the Nasirov case, ruled in favor of Olga Tkachenko, a former aide of Hranovsky. He banned the National Anti-Corruption Bureau from accessing Viber messages written by Tkachenko, a member of the Odesa Portside Plant’s executive board under investigation in a graft case.
Two employees of FCLex, a law firm that has provided legal services to Hranovsky, became defense lawyers for Nasirov. Hranovsky said he hadn’t had any dealings with them since 2014.
Lawmaker Viktor Chumak said on March 5 that Hranovsky had been tasked with making sure that the Solomyanka District Court does not issue an arrest warrant for Nasirov.
Meanwhile, Leshchenko said that Yaroslav Holovachev, chairman of Kyiv’s Court of Appeals who is allegedly linked to Hranovsky, had visited the Solomyanka District Court on March 5. As a result, Lyudmila Sheremetyeva, chairwoman of the Solomyanka District Court, told the judge on duty not to work on March 5, Leshchenko claimed.
Yana Kvitchenko, a spokeswoman for the court, denied that the court had done anything illegal, saying that a ruling by the Council of Judges did not envisage having judges on duty on Sundays.
Nasirov’s arrest is seen as part of a conflict between Poroshenko and the relatively independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Nasirov is a former lawmaker from Poroshenko’s party and protégé of Poroshenko’s former chief of staff Boris Lozhkin.
Fugitive lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko, a suspect in the same corruption case that involves Nasirov, told Rossiya 24 television last year that Poroshenko had instructed the State Fiscal Service to delay tax payments for natural gas firms and used the money to finance Poroshenko’s political projects. Poroshenko has repeatedly denied Onyshchenko’s allegations, dismissing them as a smear campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin.
Investigative journalist Dmytro Gnap on March 2 cited Onyshchenko as saying last year that Poroshenko had given the instructions on delaying tax payments directly to Nasirov.
