Among the numerous corruption cases that are being considered in court, the overwhelming minority remains in the hearing of the society. Attention usually decreases over time. And then what happens in the Anti-Corruption Court remains in the Anti-Corruption Court forever. Edition Ukrainian Pravda analyzed the state of high-profile corruption cases last year and the so-called "deals" between law enforcement officers and suspects.
One day, the prosecutor's office offered the defense a "deal" in one of the cases. In quotes because it was meant to be an informal arrangement.
Its essence is as follows: the defendant / defendants pay funds to the Defense Forces, and the prosecutor's office gives the court reasons to close the case.
That is, in exchange for a certainly useful act, a donation, the prosecutor was ready to take a dubious and less benevolent act - to disregard the ideas of justice.
This story was told to "Ukrainian Pravda" by a person familiar with the case. The truthfulness and, even more so, the significance of one such case against the background of a large number of anti-corruption cases could be questioned.
But at that time, the UP had already been investigating what was probably a new trend of anti-corruption bodies for several months. Its formula looks exactly like the story above: opaque deals, money for the budget or the army, and questionable justice.
We drew attention to this phenomenon after the classified sentence of the former Minister of Ecology Mykola Zlochevskyi, which happened very easily for a "record bribe". And later they realized that it was not about the "precedent of Zlochevsky" at all.
During 2023, the Anti-Corruption Court classified at least 11 of its verdicts. Previously, VAKS almost did not resort to such a restriction.
10 of these 11 cases are formal agreements, when the accused pleaded guilty and agreed with the prosecutor on punishment. A very mild punishment. Most also paid donats for defense.
In total, there were at least 25 such cases with agreements per year.
The agreement itself is a civilized and widespread tool in the world. It makes it possible to speed up the court proceedings and obtain evidence useful for the investigation.
This tool was not developed in Ukraine. There are holes in the legislation. In society, there is a continuous demand for "landings". In practice, there are already a number of dubious cases that raise questions about justice.
What is wrong with agreements in Ukraine
The agreement with the investigation as such is a common tool in the world. This is a compromise between the criminal and the state.
A classic example: a member of an organized gang who "surrenders" to a mobster superior to him, helps the investigation penetrate into a closed criminal community, and in exchange receives a lighter sentence for his own crimes.
The usual court process in the case of an agreement is not conducted - it is very abbreviated.
However, such an "agreement" leaves a wide field for abuse, law enforcement officers can "relax" and be less responsible for the quality of investigations. And the secrecy of the deal process undermines public trust in the court and justice.
This is how the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe formulated these risks in 2018. But there is another layer in Ukraine - chaos.
In December 2023, the prosecutor's office reported: during the entire period of operation of the anti-corruption structure, the court handed down 55 verdicts precisely on the basis of agreements, thus convicting 76 people. And as many as 25 such cases, i.e. almost half, were approved precisely during 2023.
Last year, in addition to Zlochevskyi, for example:
- banker Oleksandr Ignatenko, who appears in the case of embezzlement of funds of "Ukrgasbank";
- the mayor of Poltava Oleksandr Mamai, who paid his domestic workers from the budget;
- people's deputy Oleksandr Trukhin, who offered a bribe to the policemen for fleeing from the scene of a drunken accident;
- lawyer Oleh Goretskyi, known as an assistant to the Chairman of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Knyazev;
- Vitaly Zhukov and Andriy Rogoza are involved in the embezzlement scandal at Ukroboronprom under Poroshenko;
- Deputy Minister of Energy and Coal Industry during Yanukovych Ihor Kiryushin and others.
"The Institute of Agreements is a good story. The question is with whom and what is the agreement. We cannot make a deal with the devil. The devil must sit", - says the interlocutor of UP in the anti-corruption bodies, who is critical of the new trend.
Ukrainian law prohibits collusion with the organizer of the crime. But he is ambiguous on the issue of whether it is possible to release corrupt officials on a conditional sentence, that is, not to send them behind bars. At the same time, this kind of punishment - conditional - is usually assigned under agreements.
The main problem in Ukrainian law is the lack of space for "bargaining". The prosecutor cannot offer the criminal a lighter punishment than his article provides. Even if he exposes the most important mobster.
Employees of the anti-corruption infrastructure, who defend the current approach to deals, admit on the record that transparency and clarity are lacking here.
How law enforcement officers resort to loopholes
Banker Oleksandr Ignatenko - one of the many involved in the case of embezzlement of over UAH 200 million by the state-owned Ukrgasbank. The main and most famous suspect there is the former head of the National Bank, Kyrylo Shevchenko, who is hiding abroad.
Ignatenko should not have been released. He was suspected of a very serious offense - embezzlement on a particularly large scale, which is punishable by 7-12 years in prison. A criminal cannot be released on such charges.
However, in November 2023, the court did so. It turned out that Ignatenko was convicted not for embezzlement or even for forging documents. He was charged with official negligence. And the punishment was even milder than this already mild article provides.
The FOP, unknown to anyone, who was tried together with Ignatenko, received a suspended sentence for complicity in the schemes. That is, the risk of going to prison if he sins again.
And the high-ranking banker was fined only 51 hryvnias. Separately, he must return 35 million in damages to the state.
Ignatenko's sentence was classified. UP received it from its own sources and publishes with the exception of the transfer of the testimony that the banker has undertaken to give. This is the only piece of information that truly constitutes a mystery.
It could be partially classified - this is exactly what the Anti-Corruption Court did in another episode of the Ukrgasbank case. Instead, the entire sentence was hidden from the register.
When asked about the secrecy of sentences in the Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office, they only say that it "fully belongs to the competence of the VAKS". And he, in his turn, left the UP's request unanswered not for the first time.
By juggling the articles of the criminal code and turning, for example, "theft" into "negligence", anti-corruption bodies find space for "bargaining".
They don't like to admit it in the authorities. Because it is illegal to change qualifications specifically for a deal. But off the record, the interlocutor of the UP in the Anti-Corruption Bureau explains, they say, "qualifications are controversial", and corruption articles are similar to each other.
Thanks to soft qualifications, the former assistant to the People's Deputy Oleksandr Berkovich, involved in the case of corrupt procurement by Ukrzaliznytsia, was released from punishment altogether in 2023 - the terms expired.
One of the judges did not agree with such a decision and directly wrote that due to incorrect qualifications "the objectives of the criminal proceedings were not achieved."
Perhaps the most absurd story is the case Dmytro Mormul. In the distant 2010s, he was Mykola Zlochevskyi's deputy. And now, in the same year as his former boss, he easily got rid of criminal charges, not even admitting guilt, but paying the money.
Mormul was involved in an old case related to state procurement back in 2012. According to the UP, suspicions were being prepared against him since approximately 2017, but the prosecutor's office considered the evidence insufficient.
In the end, in 2023, after a change in the leadership of the SAP, the suspicion of embezzlement against Mormul was signed. And in less than half a year, he was already tried for less serious crimes, the terms for which have already expired. So the case had to be closed without even knowing whether there was a crime.
The ex-official, who had previously been abroad, came to court, did not admit his guilt, but at the same time, considering himself innocent, voluntarily compensated for the damages.
But only at the time when these 32 million hryvnias were stolen, they were equal to 4 million dollars. And in 2023, when Mormul paid these funds into the budget, it was equivalent to less than 900 thousand dollars.
The interlocutor of the UP in the anti-corruption bodies admits that sometimes law enforcement officers go to a deal when they see a bad prospect of the case in court:
"It happens that the terms expire. Or there is a risk that the court will change the qualifications. But in certain cases, these agreements really help us."
What the corrupt officials promise in exchange for the agreement
Detention of the head of the Supreme Court Vsevoloda Knyazeva bribery was one of the most impressive operations of anti-corruption authorities not only in 2023. Even the president found out about her already when the detectives were standing literally on the threshold of the court.
NABU and SAP publicly announced the exposure of an entire organized criminal group, the influence of which, they say, extended to other courts and bodies in the country.
9 months have passed since then. The only judge under suspicion is Knyazev. The second detained figure - lawyer Oleg Goretsky - has already signed the agreement and was released.
His sentence is also classified. It is known that the lawyer paid 21 million hryvnias to the Defense Forces. And also had to provide incriminating evidence.
However, according to UP, Goretskyi did not testify against other judges from the so-called OZU. He exposed only Knyazev, who was already caught red-handed, and the intermediaries who organized the transfer of the bribe.
Officially, this is no longer a case of "grouping" - such a qualification has been removed from the Knyazev case.
"We really found money from three judges. The prosecutor believes that this is not enough for suspicion. And Goretsky personally did not distribute the funds in order to testify about them." - informally explained in the authorities.
Shows and money in the budget - this is usually the formula for deals with corrupt officials.
To what extent these testimonies are true and really useful - an outside observer will not know. Since this is, of course, a secret of the investigation.
In the case of the already mentioned banker Ignatenko, for example, the testimony he undertook to provide does not even relate to the main crime - embezzlement schemes. Since officially he is no longer listed as a co-participant in these schemes.
Even if Ignatenko gave useful evidence, as UP sources assure, this means that the agreements with him are somewhat informal, not recorded in the agreement.
The second part of the deal - money - is an even more ambiguous tool. Donations to the Defense Forces or compensation in the budget are obviously important. But should justice be based on them?
The very idea of "economic benefit" is not new for Ukrainian law enforcement officers.
"It was invented by Lutsenko, and everyone criticized him for it at the time. Remember the Katsuba case, everything was the same there: money in the budget and a classified verdict." - the interlocutor of the UP in the anti-corruption structure draws an analogy.
And the criticism was not unfounded. In 2016, the former head of the tax police during Yanukovych's time Andriy Golovach also "redeemed". However, after a few years, he changed his mind, saying that he had agreed to a classified agreement under pressure and threats.
The leader not only did not suffer a real punishment and cleared himself of all charges, canceling the verdict. Moreover, 130 million hryvnias of compensation were returned to him. That is, society, in whose interests the agreement was to be concluded, also paid for the antics of the prosecutors and the defense.
Money not only provides an opportunity to completely opaquely "buy off" at the expense of illegally obtained funds, but also creates the risk of unequal conditions for those who do not have significant savings.
For example, in the fall, VAKS condemned a low-ranking official from Poltava who transferred only 100 hryvnias to the Armed Forces. Compared to most of the participants, this is a small amount. And the court imposed a harsher punishment on her than the prosecutor proposed.
At the same time, the Zlochevskyi family "paid off" during Lutsenko's time, and did it again in the SAP case. At the same time, during and after the agreement, it continued to invest hundreds of millions in new business.
And for the banker Ignatenko, compensation for losses did not become a real punishment. As he himself admitted in court, this "will not be an excessive burden for him, since he has savings and owns a significant amount of valuable movable and immovable property."
"Ukrainian Pravda" did not find any agreement in the register for 2023 that the Anti-Corruption Court would refuse to accept. Although there was such a practice before.
In 2020-2021, VACS repeatedly refused to release corrupt officials, believing that the punishment they agreed with the prosecutor's office was too light.
UP appealed to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office with a request to comment on individual agreements in the cases mentioned in this text. SAP replied:
"The decision to enter into plea agreements arises from the existence of a public interest ... The existence of a public interest consists in ensuring a speedy trial ... as well as in preventing the re-offending of a criminal offense.
The conditions for concluding agreements became the provision of incriminating evidence by the accused and other circumstances that ensure the interests of society and the state."
We also asked head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office provide your position on the approach to the conclusion of agreements. We did not receive an answer before the release of the material.
Abuses during deals can be resorted to by both parties: both the prosecution and the defense. A prosecutor can threaten a harsh sentence for refusing to testify, and lawyers can persuade an overworked prosecutor to compromise for the sake of a speedy trial.
"As a rule, in the first version we are talking about young and poor criminals, and in the second - about rich criminals who committed an official crime." - writes PACE in its resolution, precisely formulating the problem that Ukraine may face.
To be more precise: she encountered it already, when bodies that did not enjoy the trust of the public entered into opaque deals. In the case of new bodies, this reserve of trust is obviously greater.
But in the pursuit of indicators, it is important not to lose sight of the idea of fighting corruption. Even during the great war. And all the more so at a time when Western partners are paying attention to successes in anti-corruption.
The idea of fighting corruption is not in the number of suspicions and convictions. And to what extent they will have the effect of inevitability. So that whoever signs the agreement today does not commit a crime again.
Sonia Lukashova, UE
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