The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv ruled in favor of the former First Deputy Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Gizo Uglava, finding the information disseminated by Vitaliy Shabunin and his NGO Anti-Corruption Action Center to be unreliable. Uglava reported this on his Facebook page.
According to him, Shabunin and his NGO have 10 days to refute the false information.
In particular, the accusation that I “leaked” information to the defendants in the investigated cases must be refuted... The AntAC and Vitaliy Shabunin did not provide any evidence of their position and accusations against me, thus showing that they simply do not exist. Therefore, the court found that the information they disseminated contained defamation and harmed my honor, dignity and business reputation
In addition, Uglava reminded that the decision of the NABU Disciplinary Commission, which became the basis for his dismissal, also lacked evidence and is also being challenged in court.
“I am aware that the fight is ongoing and there may be an appeal and other insinuations from the AntAC and Vitaliy Shabunin, but I am confident in my innocence. I continue to defend myself and my honor and am ready to go through all the necessary steps to restore justice,” he added.
Recall
Gizo Uglava served as the first deputy director of the NABU for more than 9 years. He was dismissed from the bureau on September 3, 2024, with the official reason being violation of the oath of office and rules of ethical behavior. However, Uglava filed a lawsuit in court demanding that the order on his dismissal be recognized as illegal.
It is worth noting that a few months before his dismissal, he managed to make a number of high-profile statementsthat exposed potential problems in the management and investigation processes of anti-corruption detectives.
Uglava accused the NABU leadership, in particular Director Semen Kryvonos, of pressuring him to resign. He also filed a complaint with the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption against the NABU director and received official whistleblower status.
The then-deputy director of the NABU has repeatedly hinted that decisions in the bureau are made under the influence of external factors, not on the basis of the law. Among the individuals and institutions that he believed exerted this pressure were activists of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC) and the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy, who, as Uglava noted, had previously worked for the AntAC.
The same opinion is supported by lawyers, who also stated that the real goal of anti-corruption activists has turned from fighting corruption to putting pressure on certain public officials to achieve “external” goals.