The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) has approved a plea agreement with the former head of the Supreme Court and sentenced him to five years in prison with confiscation of property. Law enforcement officials are not specifying the name, but from the details of the case it is clear that this is Vsevolod Knyazev.
This was reported by the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAPO).
Knyazev was caught in May 2023 receiving a particularly large bribe — $2.7 million. At a closed-door hearing on June 8, he fully admitted his guilt, agreed to testify against his accomplices, and receive a real sentence.
In addition to five years in prison, he received the following punishments:
- a ban on holding positions in judicial and law enforcement bodies for the next three years;
- confiscation of an apartment and house;
- confiscation of over $200 000 of personal money;
- special confiscation of $1 248 700 (money from bribes).
In addition, he will direct $1 104 600 to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine through the "Come Back Alive" fund. The SAPO adds that thanks to the agreement, the state budget of Ukraine has been replenished by $2 554 300 — more than UAH 113 million.
According to Babel, Knyazev agreed to the deal by giving prosecutors the names of judges who had recently been indicted. He also named a number of other suspects who are not being made public.
According to sources close to Knyazev, he agreed to cooperate because "he did not expect a fair decision in the criminal case".
Corruption case in the Supreme Court
In May 2023, NABU and SAPO reported that they had uncovered a corruption scheme in the Supreme Court. Among those involved was the then-Chairman of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Knyazev, who was caught taking a record $2.7 million bribe.
NABU said that the case is related to decisions in favor of businessman Kostyantyn Zhevaho in the case of the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant. Zhevaho bought the plant in 2002, but the companyʼs former shareholders decided to challenge the purchase and sale agreement for 40.19% of the shares.
The court initially dismissed the claim, but in 2022, an appeal overturned the decision and declared the contract invalid. The case then went to the Supreme Court, which in April 2023 decided to leave Zhevaho with 40% of the Poltava Mining and Processing Complex. The investigation alleges that the businessman bribed judges to obtain this decision.
The press service of Kostyantyn Zhevaho told Babel that the shareholder of “Ferrexpo” has nothing to do with this situation, and the information that the bribe could have been given by people acting in the interests of the businessman is false.
They state that the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, by its decision of April 19, 2023, recognized the legality of the acquisition by “Ferrexpo” of the Poltava Mining and Processing Complex in 2002 not in the interests of Zhevaho, but "in the interests of a large, public company with respectable shareholders, which is traded on the main platform of the London Stock Exchange".
On May 19, NABU and SAPO announced new suspicions in the case of large-scale corruption in the Supreme Court: three current judges and one retired judge. Babelʼs sources told that these are judges of the Grand Chamber Ihor Zhelezny, Iryna Hryhorieva and Zhanna Yelenina, as well as Oleksandr Prokopenko, who has been retired since 2024.
On May 21, it became known that Prokopenko had re-registered the apartment on May 16 for his son, the NABU detective Bohdan Prokopenko. NABU responded that this detective was not part of the investigative group investigating the case and did not have access to the case materials. The bureau is conducting an internal investigation.
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