Ex-Deputy Minister for Occupied Territories Yuriy Hrymchak has been released from custody and placed under round-the-clock house arrest.
“The Hrymchak case. Finally, Yuriy Mykolayovych is at large!” wrote his lawyer Dmytro Melnyk on his Facebook page on Jan. 30.
Wife of ex-deputy minister, Yulia Hrymchak, also confirmed this information. “Yura is free!” she wrote on her Facebook page.
The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) told the Interfax-Ukraine agency that the defense of Hrymchak filed a motion with the court to change the preventive measure.
“The court examined this motion and changed the preventive measure from detention with an alternative to bail [which Hrymchak did not post] to a round-the-clock house arrest. The preventive measure lasts until February 14, during the pretrial investigation,” the SAPO informed.
As reported, on the evening of August 14, the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the SBU State Security Service, under the procedural leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO), detained Hrymchak and his accomplice for extorting bribes in the amount of $1.1 million. They were caught red-handed while getting $480,000 of the total amount.
According to the SBU and NABU, Hrymchak is suspected of committing a crime under Part 4 of Article 190 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (fraud committed on an especially large scale or by an organized group).
On August 16, Chernihiv’s Desniansky district court chose a preventive measure for Hrymchak in the form of detention with Hr 6 million bail as an option.
