The court kept Bilous in custody but set bail
The Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv extended the pretrial detention of Andriy Bilous, a director and former director of the Molodyi Theater. The defendant will remain in custody for another two months, but the court has for the first time set bail as an alternative. The amount is nearly 5 million hryvnias.
The court granted the prosecutor’s motion and remanded Andriy Bilous in custody for another two months.
The court also set bail for the director at 1,500 times the minimum subsistence level for able-bodied individuals, which amounts to 4,992,000 hryvnias. The defense attorneys note that this amount is unaffordable for the Bilous family; however, they view the emergence of this alternative—after the director has spent nearly 10 months in pretrial detention—as a glimmer of hope for his release from custody.
According to the defense attorneys, the court hearing began significantly late due to a delay in transporting the defendant. As a result, the court only had time to consider the parties’ motions and did not proceed to the direct examination of the evidence. As in previous hearings, the victims did not appear in court—their interests were represented by their attorneys.
During the proceedings, the prosecutor informed the defense that the materials from covert investigative operations concerning the director had been destroyed. The defense is convinced that the data collected during the surveillance could have exonerated Andriy Bilous, and views its destruction as an obstruction of efforts to prove his innocence.
The law firm “Klochkov & Partners,” which represents the director, reported this on its Facebook page.
Bilous, who is suspected of rape, is writing his autobiography.
Earlier, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko commented on the case involving Andriy Bilous, the former director of the Molodyi Theater and a professor at the Ivan Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University. The allegations involve abuse of power, sexual harassment, and violence against female students at the university.
On October 22, the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv imposed a pretrial detention measure on Andriy Bilous, the former director of the Molodyi Theater, who is accused of years of sexual harassment of female students and theater employees. The court ruled that Bilous be held in custody.
