The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) will ask the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court to ban Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov from holding positions in state and local government bodies. This was reported by SAP prosecutor Oleksandr Omelchenko in an exclusive comment on Channel 24.
On August 6, the prosecutor's office sent a case to the court regarding the official's false declaration for 2017.
Trukhanov will be tried for the fact that he did not mention the property and income of Tatyana Koltunova's wife in the declaration: an apartment in Odessa, parking spaces, a car, corporate rights. The total value of the undeclared is almost UAH 16,3 million.
The sanction of the article incriminating Trukhanov provides for imprisonment for up to 2 years or a fine of up to 3 thousand non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens, as well as deprivation of the right to hold certain positions for 3 years.
"We will propose a ban on holding positions in state and local self-government bodies," prosecutor Omelchenko said.
We note that the Anti-Corruption Court has not yet had time to consider Trukhanov's case for "lies" in the 2015 and 2016 declarations for UAH 52 million. It was approaching the verdict, but in the spring of this year the statute of limitations came. Therefore, Trukhanov will avoid punishment for these episodes, even if the court finds him guilty.
On the other hand, the prosecutor assured that the prosecutor's office would speed up so that the court would have time to issue a verdict on the new case this time.
"We, as the prosecution, will submit evidence much faster, because the practice has already developed, and the evidence will be mostly the same. We are talking about the same objects of declaration. The volume of evidence is almost the same. Therefore, we will speed up providing evidence. We will also try to have the court consider the case and issue a verdict before the statute of limitations expires, that is, by March 2021. I don't want to rush ahead with the appeal. Perhaps the verdict will suit both parties. I hope that the defense side will still admit guilt when they see the full amount of evidence. This is a process, everything is possible," informed the prosecutor.
In turn, the mayor of Odesa accused SAP of "political order" and called the new case of false declaration far-fetched and connected with the demand not to allow him to run for local elections. Trukhanov believes that the end of the pre-trial investigation in this case and the further hearing in court is not a reason to withdraw his candidacy from the elections.
