NABU and SAPO did not have 5 years to prove the guilt of ex-Minister Solskyi - they plan to interrogate another 1500 people to collect evidence

NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors want to interrogate about 1,500 more people in the case against former Agricultural Policy Minister Mykola Solsky, despite the fact that the reasonable time limits for the investigation have already expired , UNN reports.

Exactly five years ago, in July 2019, anti-corruption activists from the NABU and the SAPO launched a criminal investigation into the alleged land grab in Sumy Oblast. However, during this time  they only had enough evidence  to serve a few suspicions, including on former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky.

Despite the fact that the NABU has run out of reasonable time  for the investigation and is forced to extend it in court, detectives and prosecutors have planned to interrogate at least another 1,500 people.

In particular, the anti-corruption officers plan to interrogate four suspects, officials of the State Geocadastre and Perekhrestiv village council of Sumy region, as well as nearly 1,200 land plot owners.

The lawyers of the suspects in the case statedthat the pre-trial investigation had been going on for five years and the detectives had enough time to conduct all procedural actions. However, a large number of procedural actions are being carried out only now.

The criminal proceedings themselves refer to the events of 2017-2018, long before Solsky became minister. According to the investigation, the land plots in Sumy region allegedly belonged to the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, but were privatized by ATO participants. Solsky, who was a private lawyer at the time, helped them realize their right and get 2 hectares of land.

In order for the NABU's accusations to be confirmed, they first need to prove that the land really belonged to the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences - but there is no data or official documents. Moreover, the representatives of the Agrarian Academy themselves say that there were no documents for the land. As it turned out, the former minister's declarations for the period from 2020 to 2023 do not contain a single land plot in Sumy region.

Moreover, it became known that the detectives tried to "leak" the examination, which they themselves had ordered and which was apparently supposed to testify to Solsky's innocence.

And although during this time anti-corruption activists were unable to provide clear evidence of Mykola Solskyi's "guilt," the loud accusations did their job - he resigned as minister. In addition, the NABU's statements and the minister's resignation caused the disruption of negotiations with the Poles on unblocking the borders. 

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In their report on the results of the NABU audit, foreign experts identified a number of problems in the anti-corruption agency's activities. In particular,  the auditors statedthat the HACC has been considering cases for years, while NABU detectives can investigate them for decades. However, as practice shows, the duration of an anti-corruption investigation does not affect its quality, as "high-profile" NABU cases against high-ranking officials have repeatedly fallen apart in courts.

A good example is the criminal proceedings against former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan. Both cases collapsed in the courts. However, the NABU did not officially apologize to the former minister for illegal criminal prosecution and damage to his business reputation.