Political expert: NABU political cases are increasingly falling apart in court
Kyiv • UNN
Political analyst Ruslan Bortnik notes the trend of increasing acquittals in NABU cases with political overtones. The expert emphasizes the importance of the quality of the investigation and the evidence collected for the success of the trial.
Recently, NABU and SAPO cases with political overtones have been falling apart in court. This opinion was expressed by political scientist Ruslan Bortnik in an exclusive commentary to UNN.
Recently, there has been an increase in the number of charges being canceled and acquittals in the HACC for those who have not just some corruption charges, but (cases against them - ed.) had political overtones,
The expert emphasized that, of course, each case should be analyzed separately as to the reasons that lead to the withdrawal of charges and acquittals. However, the success or failure of a trial depends on the quality of the investigation, the quality of the evidence collected, and the prosecution's case.
Recall
Recently, the High Anti-Corruption Court canceled the NABU suspicion against former MP Oleksandr Hranovskyi, which was announced in October 2022.
And this is just one of the vivid examples of how the cases of anti-corruption bodies are falling apart in courts. Another clear example is the case of anti-corruption officials against former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan. He has repeatedly claimed that detectives were one-sided in their treatment of the case against him due to political bias. Both cases against him collapsed in the courts, but NABU did not officially apologize to the former minister for illegal criminal prosecution and damage to his business reputation.
It seems that a similar situation will occur with the NABU case against former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky, who was accused of assisting ATO veterans in privatizing land plots in Sumy region eight years ago. According to the detectives, the land was used by the National Agrarian Academy (NAAS) and could not be privatized.
However, the version of the detectives was refuted by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the National Academy of Sciences had no rights to these lands, as well as by expertswho studied the historical chronology of these lands from the 50s of the last century and also emphasized that these lands could not have been included in the land bank of the National Academy of Sciences.
Probably, for a long time, the NAAS could use the land that it had squatted and considered to be its own. This is evidenced, in particular, by the materials of some criminal proceedings, where NAAS employees were accused of squatting on the land incriminated to Solsky and ATO veterans. The NAAS leased these lands to farmers for growing their crops, although this is expressly prohibited.
So now the main intrigue of the NABU case against former Minister Solsky is whether detectives will be able to prove their assumption that the land was indeed used by the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences. If they can't, which is highly likely, the former minister will be acquitted.
Statements about the bias and political bias of NABU detectives have recently been made by the bureau's leadership. The reason for this was that anti-corruption activists launched an investigation against the first deputy director of the NABU, Gizo Uglava. Only after he found himself on the other side of the investigation did he admit that there were serious problems with the investigation conducted by anti-corruption activists and noted that the bureau was not focused on establishing the truth but on achieving "external goals.
