Employees of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) detained the former deputy chairman of the Higher Economic Court of Ukraine, who, together with other judges, organized a bribery scheme.
This was reported by the press service of SBI.
SBI does not name the name, but according to Babelʼs sources, it is about Artur Yemelyanov.
According to the investigation, the former judge, now a lawyer, was part of a criminal organization that consisted mostly of judges, lawyers, arbitration managers, various court employees, etc.
They made "necessary" decisions for bribes, mostly in business disputes. The organizer of the "business" — also a former high-ranking official of the Higher Economic Court of Ukraine — illegally interfered in the distribution of cases and referred them exclusively to "his" judges, who fulfilled the "wishes of the customers".
SBI notes that for a long time, those involved actually made it impossible to make court decisions in most cases without bribes.
Earlier, the organizer of the scheme was declared wanted, he and a number of other participants of the criminal scheme were informed of suspicion, in particular, for creating and participating in a criminal organization.
Yemelyanov is suspected of participating in a criminal organization and accepting bribes. The sanction of these articles provides up to 12 years of imprisonment with confiscation of all property.
A petition was sent to the court to choose a preventive measure in the form of detention without the alternative of posting bail.
- In 2016, the General Prosecutorʼs Office declared the suspicion of judge Yemelyanov and former head of the Higher Economic Court Viktor Tatkov in illegal interference in the automated system of distribution of cases between judges. According to the investigation, they "actually subjugated the judicial decision-making system". Tatkov appears in the case of the privatization of the Zuyiv factory in the Donetsk region and the "films" of the head of the Tupytskyi Constitutional Court.
- In 2017, Schemes wrote that Yemelyanovʼs ex-wife Svitlana owns numerous luxury properties in different parts of the world — a villa in Antalya, apartments in Dubai, two hotels in Vienna, as well as a German company that manages three hotels in Frankfurt am Main property Journalists pointed to the fictitious divorce of the couple to hide property in the judgeʼs declaration.
- In 2018, the Supreme Council of Justice (SCJ) temporarily suspended Yemelyanov. Together with his wife, he appeared in the case of "legalization of proceeds obtained through crime".
- In March 2021, the Supreme Council of Justice dismissed judge Artur Yemelyanov from the position of judge of the Supreme Economic Court. SCJ found out that he used his official position and put pressure on judges in cases until 2014.
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