The former chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's Agrarian Committee and current minister has been served with a notice of suspicion, the SAPO said on Tuesday, UNN reports.
As a source told UNN, it is Mykola Solsky.
Details
"Under the procedural guidance of SAPO prosecutors, NABU detectives exposed a scheme of illegal seizure of state land in Sumy region with a total area of about 2.5 thousand hectares and prevented an attempt to seize another 3.3 thousand hectares. The criminal group, headed by the former chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's Agrarian Committee - the current minister - included top officials of the StateGeoCadastre, as well as persons who controlled the activities of these bodies," the SAPO said.
Currently, on behalf of the head of the SAPO, the prosecutor has served a notice of suspicion of seizing land in Sumy region worth UAH 291 million and attempting to seize land worth another UAH 190 million on the former head of the Verkhovna Rada's Agrarian Committee, the current minister, of about 2,500 hectares
He is charged with committing crimes under Part 3 of Article 27, Part 5 of Article 191 and Part 3 of Article 27, Part 3 of Article 15, Part 5 of Article 191 (misappropriation, embezzlement or seizure of property through abuse of office) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
"Serving suspicion notices to other participants of the scheme is ongoing," the SAPO said.
Case in point
The pre-trial investigation, according to the SAPO, established that in 2017, the owner of a number of agricultural companies, who later became a Member of Parliament of the IX convocation and headed the Agricultural Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, in collusion with the Head of the State Geocadastre of Ukraine and the supervisors of the State Geocadastre bodies, decided to take possession of land used by two state-owned enterprises in Sumy region.
"In order to implement the scheme, its participants first ensured the destruction of documents on the basis of which state-owned enterprises had the right to permanently use the land," the SAPO said.
This later, as stated, "became the basis for the regional State Geocadastre to draw up an act on the unauthorized occupation of these plots by state-owned enterprises".
"In order to prevent the transfer of the land to unauthorized persons, it was included in the list for the lease auction, but no bidding was held," the prosecutor's office said.
Subsequently, according to the SAPO, "with the help of controlled officials of the regional State Geocadastre, these lands were transferred to private ownership." "At the same time, the land was transferred to predetermined citizens under the guise of exercising their right to free land, and the condition for receiving the land was to sign an agreement on its lease to the agricultural holding before receiving it," the agency said.
The implementation of this scheme in 2017-2021 led to the seizure of 1250 land plots with a total area of 2493 hectares, the value of which at the time of the crime was more than UAH 291 million, the SAPO said.
In addition, as noted, the individuals attempted to seize 3,282 hectares of land worth about UAH 190 million, but due to timely actions of the SAPO and NABU, the land was seized.