The Appellate Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) refused to change the preventive measure for former MP Maksym Mykytas — he must still be in pre-trial detention with the possibility of posting bail of UAH 30 million.
The judges made this decision at a meeting on September 1, reports a Babel correspondent.
Attorney Artur Gabrielyan requested a reduction in bail and noted that Mykytas could have posted bail of UAH 10 million. Instead, the prosecutor asked the court to increase the bail to UAH 200 million.
During the hearing, attorney Gabrielyan explained that Mykytas had no money and was forced to pawn several of his watches in June for $20 000. He was supposed to redeem them in August, but ended up in pre-trial detention and was therefore unable to do so.
"Mykytas pawned two or four watches in June. This money was needed for his personal needs. Watches are his weakness. This is the last thing he would sell or pawn, and if he did, this accordingly characterizes his financial situation," Gabrielyan noted.
In turn, the prosecutor, arguing that Mykytas had enough funds for bail, noted that Mykytas was able to financially provide for two years of education and housing for the daughter of another person involved in the case, former deputy head of the Public Prosecutorʼs Office Iryna Mudra, in New York, in a single payment of over UAH 10 million.
He also says that Mykytas transferred an amount in shekels equivalent to approximately UAH 560 thousand to Mudraʼs mother, and promised to transfer similar amounts every six months in the future.
During the hearing, the judge asked Mykytas whether violence was really used against him in the pre-trial detention center — something that UP journalist Mykhailo Tkach had said a few days ago. Mykytas said that this was not true.
What preceded
Mykytas is one of the figures in the "Forrest Gump" operation to legalize UAH 150 million to pay bail for one of the figures in the "Midas" case — former Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko.
According to the investigation, in early June, the participants in the scheme gained actual control over “Sense Bank” and began using it to launder money. They were informed of suspicion under Part 3 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — legalization of money obtained by criminal means.
On the first day of the court session, the SAPO prosecutor named all the defendants in this case, including:
- former Deputy Head of the Presidentʼs Office Iryna Mudra;
- former MP Maksym Mykytas;
- current MP Vadym Stolar;
- Deputy Minister of Justice Olena Ferens;
- Director General of the Directorate for Legal Policy of the Public Prosecutorʼs Office Viktor Dubovyk;
- businessman and former deputy of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council Vasyl Astion;
- former chairmen of the supervisory board and management board of the state-owned “Sense Bank” Mykola Hladyshenko and Oleh Stupak;
- the head of the department of the state-owned “Sense Bank” Lyudmila Snihur;
- According to the prosecutor, the people connected with Mykytas are Valentyn Yelizarov, Yehor Merkulov, Oleksandr Ostapenko, and Mykyta Tarkovsky.
In addition, on August 20, NABU and SAPO presented a continuation of this case — Operation Themis with the same defendants. As investigators established, with the help of hackers, the defendants hacked into state registers, forged documents, and used "their" people in the Commercial Court and the Ministry of Justice to seize enterprises and real estate.