On the evening of November 28, bail in the amount of 40 260 000 hryvnias was paid for the MP from the group "For the Future" Serhiy Labazyuk. In the morning of that day, the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine (HACC) chose a preventive measure for him and sent him to the pre-trial detention center for two months.
This information was confirmed to Babel by the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAP). In a comment to Babel, lawyer Yevhen Hrushovets specified that the deposit was paid for the MP. Who exactly did it is not disclosed.
Previously, a member of the "For the Future" group, Labaziuk pleaded not guilty and told a "Radio Svoboda" correspondent that he planned to borrow the money for bail.
MPs were assigned a number of duties, including: to arrive at the first call; not to be separated from Kyiv and Khmelnytskyi region; to surrender foreign passports and not to communicate with witnesses in the case.
According to the investigation, the MP, in collusion with the director of the joint-stock company, offered the Minister of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine and the head of the State Agency for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure of Ukraine a bribe for the allocation of UAH 1 billion in additional financing of works performed by the specified company under his control.
The position of Minister of Community Development is currently held by Oleksandr Kubrakov, and the head of the State Agency for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure is Mustafa Nayem.
The proposed amount of the bribe was supposed to be from 3% to 5% of the amount of financing.
After receiving UAH 50 million for a contract for the restoration of a destroyed bridge in one of the regions of Ukraine, the MP, through a proxy, gave the whistleblower-top official of the State Reconstruction Agency the promised interest in the amount of $150 000. The transfer of money took place in the parking lot of one of the capitalʼs supermarkets, and the money was in a Chinese box.
The extras were charged with suspicion under Part 4 of Art. 369 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The sanction of the article provides up to 10 years of imprisonment with or without confiscation of property.
- Majoritarian Labaziuk has already been elected three times to the parliament in his native Khmelnytskyi, where he owns the Vitagro agricultural holding and a number of construction enterprises. In the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation, he sits on the agricultural policy commission, and is also a member of the special commission on the protection of investorsʼ rights.